


Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me?

by LittleMousling



Category: Pod Save America (RPF)
Genre: Friends With Benefits, Friendship, Hotel Sex, Hotels, Love Confessions, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Pining, Road Trips, Tourism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-23 06:02:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14326146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMousling/pseuds/LittleMousling
Summary: Jon knows the best fix for Lovett's doldrums: a relaxing road trip. The sex is just a bonus.





	Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jenga](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenga/gifts).



> With MASSIVE thanks to my M. and to [Moog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moogle62/pseuds/moogle62) for betaing! <33333
> 
> Title is [from Whitman](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48859/song-of-the-open-road), but I capitalized the second sentence because it looked too weird out of context. Sorry, Walt.

Lovett isn’t answering Jon’s texts. 

Jon might not normally have noticed; Lovett’s almost as glued to his phone as Jon is, but he has a life, and he’s not always available. But Lovett also hasn’t come over in two full days, and he’s usually in Jon’s living room or raiding his fridge at least a couple of times a day. It’s just part of Jon’s life in LA: the sun shines; the nearest Dunkin Donuts is an hour away; Lovett is always there, funny and sharp and entirely comfortable taking over Jon’s space. 

Jon would know if Lovett was out of town, because Lovett would have told him to watch for burglars, and Jon would have said “You have a security system,” and Lovett would have scoffed and pointed out that private security systems mostly result in false positives that drain police resources and taxpayer dollars, and are secretly a boondoggle in favor of the well-off. None of which replaces the fact that Lovett _does_ have a security system, but fine, Jon will keep an eye out for the Bling Ring. 

He knows Lovett isn’t with his boyfriend, because David’s Instagram is full of pictures of himself with friends in Maui, holding improbable tropical drinks and looking edible in tight trunks. 

Lovett does occasionally do all-weekend gaming parties with Spencer and the crew, but it’s Thursday, and most of those guys have normal jobs. 

Jon’s thinking about this too much. He shakes his shoulders out—he’s too tense, he should go for a swim—and picks up his phone. He’ll text one more time. Lovett will definitely get back to him this time. 

_You around?_

He hits send, then goes to scroll Twitter. He’s having trouble focusing. He’s just gotten so used to the routine out here, since he moved. He’s been slow to make new, West Coast friends because he’s always talking to his old ones—some still in the White House, starting to rumble about the likely 2016 candidates—but mostly because Lovett’s filled in all of his social needs. 

Jon could probably use this moment to reassess his level of dependence on Lovett’s proximity, and maybe join a gym and start making friends who aren’t just friends of Lovett’s or Andy’s.

Instead, he gets up and heads across the street. He should return that DVD of the Lego Movie, anyway. That’s just good friend behavior.

Lovett’s car is out front, and it’s the only one, so Jon figures he’s all right to let himself in the way they always do. He usually doesn’t go to Lovett’s without warning—Lovett does it to him about twice a day—but it’s certainly within the boundaries of their friendship. He’s pretty sure it is.

“Lovett?” he calls, and there’s a groan from farther into the house. 

Jon has a second to think _he’s fallen and hit his head and I could have checked on him two days ago_ before he’s in the living room and seeing Lovett safely waking up on the couch. Safely waking up on the couch next to a horrifying array of take-out containers and a bone-dry bottle of Grey Goose lying on the rug below him, with the TV on Netflix’s “are you still there?” page.

“Ooo-kay,” Jon says, gently. “Lovett? You have a party last night? The … last couple of nights?” 

It’s a pretty obvious no, with only one fork in evidence, and no glasses. Lovett was, apparently, swigging right from the bottle. There’s also a half-empty bowl of popcorn on the coffee table that seems to have— “Is that chocolate syrup?” He reaches in and swipes his finger through it, and shakes to dislodge a piece of popcorn that wants to follow. He licks his finger. “You put chocolate syrup on popcorn?” 

Lovett groans, and turns his face away from the room, into the couch cushions. “Don’t talk to me. I’m grieving.” 

Jon stares down at him. He’s probably, definitely, probably talking about a job—one of his production deals falling through, something. Lovett takes that stuff hard. But Jon’s not sure, and Lovett rarely reacts well to being questioned about upsetting personal topics. 

Jon bounces his hand against his thigh, thinking through his options, and then steps out into Lovett’s back yard to call Lovett’s sister. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, Stephanie. Jon here. Favreau. Jon Favreau.”

Stephanie sounds bemused; she doesn’t sound like someone who’s just lost a family member, or anything like that. “I have caller ID, Jon. What’s up?”

“Uh, Lovett’s a little down, and I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t bad family health news or anything. You know how he gets about probing questions.” 

Stephanie makes a noise Jon can’t fully parse. “Uh, nope, the family’s fine,” she says. “You? Everything good in Hollywood?”

Jon laughs. “I’m not really—I mean, I live here, but Lovett’s the one who’s really _in_ Hollywood, you know.” 

“Well, you’re in by association,” Stephanie says. “Listen, I just heard a crash—”

“Oh, yeah, go, go. Say hi to the family for me.”

Stephanie clicks out of the call, and Jon stands for a second in the sun before heading back into the dark house. “Lovett, I’m gonna turn the light on. Fair warning.”

Lovett groans again, and Jon flips on the dimmest of the living room lights. Lovett doesn’t usually close his blinds; it’s strange to be in here with them down, like they’re in a room underwater instead of in the bright, smog-filled air of California. 

Lovett looks—pitiful, on his belly on the couch with his arms under his body and his face mashed into the cushions. He’s barefoot in sweats and a t-shirt, the t-shirt rucked up to reveal a few inches of his back. Jon makes himself look away; makes himself shut down any thoughts of how soft Lovett’s skin would feel under his fingertips. It’s almost automatic, almost easy. He’s been doing it for years, now, and it mostly happens below the level of his conscious brain. He’s probably just tired today, or stressed about Lovett’s solo bender—that’s the only reason he’s finding it hard to push those thoughts below the surface. 

He sits on the armchair, says, “If you still need to sleep, I can help you get to bed. Or if you get up, I’ll take you for coffee.” 

“I hate you,” Lovett says. Then, reluctantly, “But I love coffee.”

Jon grins. “Nice big iced coffee with room for milk, just the way you like it,” he prompts. “I’ll get you a muffin, even. Go wild.” 

Lovett levers himself up, and then grunts and drops back down. “Never mind, go on without me. I’m going to die on this couch.” 

Jon wants to ask how much Lovett drank—how full the bottle was when he started. He wants to ask what, exactly, Lovett’s grieving, if it was a current project or a potential one. If it was that pilot he’s been shopping, or if they cancelled his development deal. He’s not entirely sure they _can_ cancel development deals, but he’s not the Hollywood mogul in the room. 

He wants to pull Lovett’s shirt down, or push it farther up.

“I’ll get you some water,” he says, instead, and absents himself from the living room. 

When he gets back with the water, Lovett’s upright, more or less, with an arm over his eyes. Jon presses the glass into his other hand, and Lovett lifts it blindly to his mouth. Based on how effectively he reaches it, and that he doesn’t knock it into his teeth, Jon’s guessing he’s sober at this point. Jon’s still going to be the one to drive them to Starbucks. 

“C’mon,” he says. “You need to get outside. Is this why you didn’t come over yesterday?”

“I don’t know,” Lovett says. “What day is it?” He sounds like he’s kidding. Jon’s pretty sure he’s kidding. 

Even if he’s kidding, though, he’s a wreck. Jon wants to fix it, more than a venti iced latte will do. He’s not sure how, but he’ll think of something on the drive. 

“Up, up,” Jon says, and Lovett levers himself off the couch, groaning. 

“I’m not getting out of the car,” Lovett tells him. “I’m not forcing strangers to deal with me in this state.” 

“Deal,” Jon says. Lovett is in deep need of a shower, so it’s probably a good idea to keep him out of the crowded Starbucks they frequent. They can worry about hygiene after Lovett’s caffeinated. 

He wants to pry. He very intensely wants to pry. The problem is, Lovett’s predictable about work. He crows about successes, endlessly. He made Jon, Spencer, Andy, and Molly come over to watch the episode of the Newsroom he wrote, and woe betide anyone who didn’t pay full attention. But Jon knows there are lulls and down periods in the kind of work Lovett does, and Lovett tends to take those to heart. Jon doesn’t want to be the guy who pokes too hard where Lovett’s already sore and sensitive. 

“If you order it on the app for us,” Jon says, “I won’t even have to be out of the car for, like, five minutes.” 

“Is this your way of backing out of buying me things?” Lovett asks, but it doesn’t have his usual commitment to the joke. He just sounds bland.

Jon hands over his own phone, finger on the unlock button. “Order it on mine.” 

“I’m also going to post something embarrassing to your Facebook now that I have the power,” Lovett says, and he sounds better—not cheered up, but a little closer to himself. Maybe it’s the car. Jon always feels better in a car, some vestige of the joys of family road-trips when he was a kid, or just the semi-privacy to play music and feel the freedom of the open road. Not that Los Angeles’ traffic quite counts as open. 

There’s a lull, Lovett tapping at Jon’s phone, and then Lovett says, “I’m getting a breakfast sandwich, an iced coffee, and a slice of coffee cake. What do you want?”

“Uh—” Jon doesn’t want to start the fight about iced lattes. “Same, but get me banana bread instead of the coffee cake.” He mentally apologizes to Starbucks for being an accomplice to milk theft. Well—milk misappropriation. 

Lovett taps some more, and sets Jon’s phone in the console. “I thought you were going to punk me?” Jon asks, turning into the parking lot. 

Lovett shrugs, just visible in Jon’s peripheral vision. He’s staring out the window, and he doesn’t move when Jon turns the engine off. “Okay, uh. Be back in a minute,” Jon says, and grabs his phone before heading inside. 

There’s still a wait, per his app. He probably should have waited in the car. He could be out there right now, making Lovett feel better. Goading him into telling jokes. It never takes much to get Lovett going on a topic; Jon could probably make him feel better despite himself. 

He crosses to the window. Lovett’s tilted his head back against the seat, eyes closed. He’s not even relaxed; his mouth is set in a way that looks like unhappiness. Maybe bitterness. 

Jon has the glimmer of an idea. The open road; the feeling of racing down the highway, stopping at rest stops to stretch. Seeing new and exciting places, counting out-of-state license plates and livestock. 

Their order comes up, and he grabs it, thanks the barista. Surreptitiously tips too much courtesy milk into each of the coffees. He does it all on autopilot, thinking about his idea, and gets back to the car mostly by muscle memory, juggling the drinks tray as he opens the door. “I have an idea,” he announces. 

Lovett grabs for his coffee, and doesn’t reply, maybe because he’s too busy slurping it down. 

“What’s your schedule like for the next couple of weeks?” Jon asks him. “Do you have to be anywhere?”

Lovett stops slurping and looks even more forlorn. “No, I have nothing at all going on in my life, thanks for asking,” he says. He slumps further down, puts his shoes up on Jon’s dashboard. 

“Well—” Well, shit. “So then let’s go on a road trip,” he says, trying to save it. “It’ll be fun. I’ll look up routes—we can go see, like, Yosemite or something.”

Lovett doesn’t respond; this time, he’s working his way into his breakfast sandwich. Jon presses on. “Look, I’ll drop you off, you can shower and start packing. I’ll figure out a route, we’ll call everyone we need to call, we’ll get on the road early tomorrow. I’ll go buy snacks. It’ll be awesome. Once-in-a-lifetime.” 

Lovett shakes his head, but it’s closer to disbelief than refusal, Jon’s pretty sure. He finishes chewing the bite he’s on, says, “Don’t _you_ have things going on in your life?”

Jon shrugs. “Tommy can hold down the fort. I just sent in the stump speech for the special election guy, and we’ve got kind of a lull before all the primary campaigns kick in.” He turns them out of the parking lot, drums his thumbs on the steering wheel, adds, “So you’d be, like. You’d be getting me to take a vacation before everything gets crazy. It would be a big favor to me.”

“You could go with anyone,” Lovett says, but it’s a weak protest at best. He takes another bite of his sandwich. 

“C’mon,” Jon says. “I’d have more fun with you than anybody. Look, we’ll make a deal. Come with me to—” He almost says Las Vegas, then thinks better of it. Whatever’s making Lovett sad, Las Vegas probably isn’t the best way to cheer him up. Las Vegas, in Jon’s opinion, is only fun when you’re happy. When you’re sad, it’s horrible. “—the Grand Canyon. It’ll be amazing. Have you been there?”

“Have I, a born New Yorker, raised in the greatest city in the world—”

“So, no.” Jon finds himself smiling. Lovett almost sounded like himself, there. This _is_ a good idea, however impulsive it may be. “Here’s the deal. Pack for ten days—”

“Is your plan to drive onto the Queen Mary once you hit the Atlantic? Because it doesn’t take ten days to get—”

“We can stay somewhere when we get there. Or stay longer in the middle if somewhere’s fun. Pack for ten days so we don’t have to rush. And then we’ll go to the Canyon, and if you’re not enjoying yourself, we’ll drive back. Okay?”

Lovett shakes his head again. This one, Jon’s absolutely sure, is him giving in. “This is ridiculous,” he says. 

“Yeah,” Jon agrees. “I’ll pick you up at seven tomorrow.”

***

Jon gets on Google before he even starts in on his food. 

They don’t have to go across, he figures. From the Canyon, they could still go anywhere—all the way up to the Arctic, even. Maybe Lovett would like to see the Northern Lights. Except he thinks he remembers Lovett saying something about an expired passport. Okay, then—right over towards the East Coast. He starts searching for routes.

There’s an article on Jalopnik about the best driving routes to cross the US, and one of them is, wow, a circle around the country that hits every major tourist destination. That would be amazing. They could see the Grand Canyon and Yosemite and Carlsbad and the Alamo, and twenty other places, besides. 

Jon scrolls further, reads _the route would realistically take 2-3 months to complete._

Possibly not that one, then. But the Grand Canyon is only ten or twelve hours from here. They could stay over, spend a day there, go on to somewhere else amazing. They could zig-zag it, if they want. Or they could drive right across and stay somewhere on the beach, watching the ocean they grew up with. 

Within an hour, Jon has a plan for them. They’ll take the 40 to the Grand Canyon, then keep driving until they hit Cape Cod. It’s out of season; they’ll be able to get a room on the water, something nice, and just relax for a few days before they fly back. 

He’ll need a rental car, if they’re flying back, but that’s easy to book, and he pays a little extra to have it dropped off at his house tonight instead of his having to go get it. Then, on a roll, he picks out their trip snacks online, too, and books delivery for today. “Vacation starts now,” he tells his laptop, hitting the confirmation button to purchase. “No chores, just relaxing.”

Relaxation—that’s the key to this whole endeavor. They’ll turn off their phones, turn up the radio, and eat appalling snacks. Lovett will make him laugh. Jon will make Lovett cheer up. 

He has to call Tommy, and Andy, and probably his mom. Lovett, he figures, has to at least call David. 

Jon supposes, now he’s thinking about it, that David may find this whole thing pretty weird. But Lovett hadn’t said anything, and frankly—frankly, while Jon works very hard to be friendly to David, he can’t pretend he much cares what David thinks about anything. Jon’s never cared about the philosophical conundrum about whether someone can truly be a monster if they only do good acts. It’s an easy answer for him, despite the sermons of his youth: he’s not a bad friend if he resents Lovett’s boyfriends, as long as no one can tell. He’s not a bad friend because he wishes things were different, as long as the wishes stay entirely inside his head.

Jon has to believe that, because the wishing hasn’t gone away in the three years since he realized what that thing he felt around Lovett really was, and because Lovett hasn’t been single for more than two weeks in all that time. He dates, too; he’s not waiting around like a creep. He just wishes it were different. 

Jon calls Tommy around four, the light starting to slant through the windows. “Listen, I’m gonna drag Lovett on a road trip,” Jon tells him. He’s got the phone pinned to one ear by his shoulder while he shoves balled socks into the mesh pocket inside his suitcase. “Like—a week and a half. Can you hold down the fort without me? We don’t have anything big coming up, right?”

“Did you finish that speech for—”

“Yes, mother,” Jon says, and winces in correct expectation of Tommy telling him, “Not only is that sexist—”

“You’re right, you’re entirely right,” Jon says. “Mea culpa. Anyway, I already sent the speech. So otherwise, things are quiet, right?”

Tommy hums, thinking. “I mean, theoretically we should use the lulls to drum up clients. But—yeah, sure. It’s gonna get crazy when the primary campaigns start winding up, you better take some time now.”

“That’s exactly what I told Lovett,” Jon says. “He’s bummed about something, so I’m gonna take him cross-country.”

“Skiing or driving?” 

“Driving, Tommy, it’s March.” He ignores Tommy sputtering in the background that there’s great skiing in March, and adds, “We’re gonna go, like, here to the Grand Canyon, hit St. Louis and Columbus, end up in Cape Cod. It’ll be great.” 

“Cape Cod? You know you live an hour from the ocean, right? You could just go there.”

“It’s not the same,” Jon says, and means it. “Anyway, Lovett needs to get out of town, have a vacation. He got fired, I think. Or lost a bid for a job, I don’t know how his stuff works. He won’t tell me, but it’s gotta be something like that. I called his sister, the family’s all fine.”

“You called Stephanie?”

“Well, I didn’t want to make him feel worse. Or make him snap at me.”

Tommy sighs, audibly. “We really should talk about your avoidant tendencies, Jon.”

“Absolutely. After I get back from this trip. Thanks for handling the Fenway stuff, I’ll text you pictures from the road. Bye!” Jon hangs up despite the noise of Tommy trying to get a word in edgewise. He supposes Tommy may have a point about avoidant tendencies, but this is vacation. He’ll worry about self-improvement another time.

***

“Okay, points for the snacks,” Lovett says, climbing into the car with his duffel.

Jon had maybe gone a little overboard on the delivery snacks. It had been easy to keep clicking ‘add to cart,’ and he’d found himself tossing in snack foods he’d never previously considered. Anything that might appeal to Lovett had made it into the order. 

A selection of them is filling three reusable grocery bags in the footwells of the back seat, and Lovett’s twisted around in the passenger seat sifting through them. “Ooh, zebra cakes,” Lovett says, happily, and a package hits Jon in the thigh before Lovett twists back around. 

Jon supposes he’s game. He tears the package open with one hand and his teeth, because they’re still very much in LA traffic and he’s not about to endanger Lovett in the first twenty minutes of the trip. 

He aches to ask Lovett what’s wrong. He holds off. They’ve got days and days for that. He says, instead, “The interstate highway system transformed the face of the country and literally paved the way for the heavily suburban way of life that flourished in the 1950s and continues to this—”

“Okay, if I wanted an audiobook, I’d have one,” Lovett says. “The interstate system was a boondoggle by the car industry that destroyed inner-city communities and literally cut black neighborhoods off from—”

Jon fights to hide his smile. He had a feeling that would work. Nothing gets Lovett going like a good argument. “Counterpoint,” he says. “The world’s biggest ball of string.”

“You’re much too smart for that to be your counterpoint,” Lovett announces, but then starts in on the intersection of roadside attractions and racialized barriers to travel like sundown towns, and Jon munches into the surprising deliciousness of a zebra cake. 

It takes them an hour to get out of the city, but after that, it’s the best kind of driving: the sun up high enough to be out of Jon’s eyes, the traffic flowing, Lovett twisting himself into various strange positions in the passenger seat. 

The only real problem is that every time there’s a lull in conversation—rarer with Lovett, but neither of them is an automaton of chitchat—Lovett goes full morose again almost instantly, staring out the window, sunk down into himself. At one point he literally pulls up his knees and wraps his arms around them, like a character in a Katherine Heigl movie. 

Jon doesn’t say anything about it; he doesn’t know what to say. He still doesn’t know what Lovett’s even sad about, and Tommy’s not wrong that he’s avoiding asking. It’s easier to just … talk around it. To find a new conversation starter and get Lovett going again, cheering up the more he talks. 

They’ve got hours to go today; maybe these periods of improvement will start to stick. Or maybe it’ll take a few more days, and Lovett will feel better in Amarillo, or Columbus. Jon can keep up the work on his side. 

It’s almost eleven when they roll into the Grand Canyon area. Lovett’s been googling hotels for the last hour, making amusing and mostly disparaging comments about the options. He spent most of the last twenty minutes on the phone, trying to wheedle a room out of one of them. He hangs up, finally, just as Jon’s starting to think they’ll need to double back to the 40, where he’s sure he’d spotted a motel sign. 

“We have a room at the El Tovar,” Lovett says. “You’re paying for it.” 

“So when you say room—” Jon asks, and Lovett snorts.

“Palatial suite with a balcony,” Lovett says. “No, those are sold out until next November. We took the tiny room that’s sometimes a storage closet. And the bar already closed. Apparently _every_ bar in this place closes at eleven, which is a fucking travesty. We should sue.” 

It’s been a long drive, but Jon’s as happy about Lovett’s improvements in mood. He’s using maybe sharper humor than his usual, but definitely humor. This is the lively Lovett he knows and loves. This trip was a fantastic idea, if he does say so himself. 

Jon drums his fingers on the steering wheel, thinking through his response. Lovett seems improved enough to make the offer. “Well, there’s Tito’s in the trunk,” he says. “If you promise not to get, like, chocolate-sauce-on-popcorn wasted again.” 

“No deal,” Lovett says. “Take a right here.” 

The hotel is stunning, lit gently against the dark sky, and Jon hefts their bags—and the grocery bag with the liquor—and trails Lovett into the lobby. “Fancy,” he comments, and Lovett looks back at him as if to say, _please don’t embarrass me in front of these people._ Jon zips it.

Their room is exactly as Lovett described, but it’s a room, and it’s not moving, and Jon flops down on the near side of the bed with a groan. “I’m never getting up again,” he declares. 

“You’re getting up tomorrow to take me to the Grand Canyon and then drive me home,” Lovett tells him. “Also you’re going to sit up and drink with me. Don’t leave me to drink alone, Jon, it’s unkind.”

Jon sucks in a long breath and levers himself up. “You’re going to love it and want to come to Cape Cod with me,” he says. “And I drove the whole way, you should bring the alcohol to me. And snacks. Did we leave the snacks in the car?”

“We did not,” Lovett says, producing a bag of string cheeses and a box of crackers. “Don’t worry, Jon. I’m a provider. I provide.”

“I literally bought everything you’re holding,” Jon points out. 

“Details.” Lovett tosses him a string cheese and goes to get the hotel’s water glasses out of their plastic sleeves. “You want, like, regret-it volume or curse-my-forefathers volume?”

Jon peels the string cheese. “Is ‘just a nice buzz’ an option here, or—no, I see it isn’t,” because Lovett’s pouring, and he’s pouring heavy. “Okay, then.” 

Lovett hands a glass to Jon and sits up at the headboard, crackers next to him. Jon climbs back to join him, shoving a pillow behind his back and wriggling until it’s more or less comfortable. “Cheers,” he says, going to clink his glass with Lovett’s, but Lovett’s already drinking. “Never mind.”

“Get on with it, Jon,” Lovett says. “Time and a blackout wait for no man.”

“Is that really what we’re going for, here? Because checkout is eleven and I’d like to actually, like, see the Grand Canyon without a headache, ideally.”

Lovett just rolls his eyes and keeps drinking. Jon doesn’t try to keep up with him, but he takes a couple of healthy sips and steals a few crackers. The remote’s within his reach, but he doesn’t grab for it. He wants to see what Lovett’s planning, if they’re going to talk. If Lovett’s going to tell him what’s up. 

Right now Lovett’s just pouring another tumbler of Tito’s. “Listen, at some point you’re going to be drunk enough that I can hide the bottle from you successfully,” Jon points out. He climbs off the bed to grab a few water bottles from the bag; if they’re close, Lovett will probably drink them at some point. 

Lovett’s setting down the empty glass and going for the crackers instead, now. “I can’t believe I let you drag me through the Rockies or whatever today,” he says. “This is why I want a dog. No one makes you go places when you have a dog.” 

“We could have brought a dog. If I get a dog I’m still going to travel places.” Jon wants a dog. Jon can feel the liquor hitting him, a little. A dog would be fluffy and nice and he could try out stump-speech improvements on it, while it sat with its head cocked, watching him. That’s a nice idea. 

“You wouldn’t,” Lovett says darkly. “Everyone thinks they’ll do stuff in the future but then it’s like, you wake up and you’re thirty-two and alone and—” He stops, shoves a cracker into his mouth. 

That’s not the complaint Jon was expecting. “Oh, you—uh, you and David broke up?”

Lovett scoffs. Jon waits, but nothing else seems to be forthcoming. 

“That sucks,” he tries. “He was so, um, nice.” Actually, ‘nice’ was the main thing he hadn’t been. He’d been funny, but hard-edged where Lovett’s humor—today excepted—has always struck Jon as genuine and friendly. David’s was more like getting punched in the balls, verbally. 

Hot, though. No question about that. And this certainly puts the thirst-trap Instagram posts from Maui in a different light.

“He was my last chance at lifelong happiness instead of alcohol-drenched loneliness,” Lovett says, which is a fairly impressive sentence for someone who’s down at least five shots’ worth of 80-proof vodka. 

Jon goes to hide the bottle. “That’s nonsense,” he says. “That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said. You’re amazing, you’ll find someone new in no time.” He puts it up in the closet, behind the extra blanket and pillow, and then stands there for a second, facing away from Lovett, thinking _I could just … say something._

He could. It’s been three years of Lovett never being single long enough that it isn’t skeezy to hit on him; the next guy who beats Jon to asking Lovett out could be Lovett’s forever guy. 

The skeeze factor has been, maybe, a cop-out. It’s easier not to say anything. It’s easier to think, _I’ll ask next week._ His life and Lovett’s are so intertwined; they orbit around each other. Jon only lets so many people into his solar system, and a fair few of them share half his DNA. His friends group is small and intense, and Lovett, the last year, has become the bright burning center of it. If he fucked things up with Lovett, Jon doesn’t know what he’d do. So he hasn’t risked it. He hasn’t had many chances, either, but mostly—Tommy’s right about him.

Not tonight, dammit. He’s going to face things head-on tonight. He tries and fails to make himself turn and look at Lovett before he says, softly, “I mean, you’re perfect. Anyone would want to be with you. I would—”

“I’ve decided that I’ll just fatally wound any man who comes within six feet,” Lovett interrupts. “That’s the plan. No more getting my fucking hopes up, just—shiv to the, the, what’s that artery in the thigh? Stab them in the dick, straight through to that artery. That’s the boundary.”

Jon closes his mouth with an audible click, and then closes the closet door. “Right,” he says. “Sure, good plan. You might need to give a warning first, or that’s, you know, first degree murder. What with the planning it out first.” 

Lovett scoffs. “It’s justifiable homicide,” he says, and lifts his empty glass to his mouth, then stares down at it. He’s a little cross-eyed. He looks at the nightstand, where the bottle of Tito’s isn’t sitting anymore, and squints. “Hey, where’s the—”

“So how long is your moratorium, do you think?” Jon says, in a rush. His heart’s pounding; he thinks it’s adrenaline, or at least adrenaline plus vodka. 

Lovett’s already shaking his head before he turns to look at Jon. “You don’t _get_ it.” He drops the glass on the bed; Jon picks it up and stashes it safely on the other nightstand. “It’s just—life. It was stupid to think, you know, there’d be any—whatever.”

Jon’s not really following. “So like … couple of months?” Only once it’s out of his mouth does he think, _oh, I’m drunk too._ He shouldn’t be saying any of this, shouldn’t be pressing Lovett on what’s obviously a very sore subject. Shouldn’t be showing his hand. 

“Couple of centuries,” Lovett says, dramatically, and starts wriggling out of his pants. Jon makes himself look away. “Couple of millenia. Couple of eons. I think I’ll die alone, then be reborn, then die alone again, then—”

“Got it,” Jon says. There’s concrete in his stomach, he thinks. Something like that. The vodka and crackers have formed up into a ball of concrete, weighing him down, making it hard to swallow. “I guess if you’re sure.”

“Ugh,” Lovett says, more a grunt than a word. He flops onto his belly and shoves the pillows away from his face. “Turn the light off.” 

Jon turns the light off. He brushes his teeth—he’s not drunk enough to skip it, even if Lovett is—and climbs into bed, keeping a solid foot of space between himself and Lovett. 

He sleeps, eventually.

***

Jon wakes up to firm, rhythmic knocking. “Housekeeping!”

“No thank you!” Jon manages to shout back. His voice is gritty with sleep, but his head feels fine, and his stomach’s not bad. He woke up at some point and drank one of the bottles of water, he remembers now.

The maid must have heard him; there’s no attempt to open the door, or any further knocking or yelling. 

Lovett’s awake, too, if less fully than Jon is. He’s groaning, putting a hand between his eyes and the light seeping in through the curtains. Jon can’t say he has a great deal of sympathy. 

“I’ll take the first shower,” he tells Lovett. “So you can sleep a little longer. But for the record, it’s almost noon and we’ve slept past checkout.” Jon will figure out how to handle that when he’s clean and caffeinated. 

More of the night comes back to him once he’s under the warm spray of the shower, feeling distinctly more human now he’s getting yesterday’s long drive off his skin. Lovett’s not depressed over a job; he’s been dumped, again. 

Jon can remember a time when Lovett was good at relationships. Those late years at the White House, if Jon had known what he’d wanted, Lovett would still have been off-limits not just as Jon’s employee, but also as a happy member of a couple. He’d been smug, even. Jon misses that smugness, even if he’d wanted something different. He’d liked happy, glowing Lovett, coming in from weekends in New York with a grin he couldn’t erase. 

Lovett in LA has been … different. Not _un_ happy, exactly, but unsettled. Uncertain. Jon sometimes thinks, and doesn’t say, that maybe the TV thing isn’t as fulfilling as Lovett had hoped. Lovett in the White House had been working for the betterment of the world. By writing jokes and dense science speeches, admittedly, but he’d had _purpose_. Lovett, in Jon’s view, thrives under pressure. He thrives on bucking it, rolling into the office late in shorts; he procrastinates; but he needs that firm certainty that the deadline is real, that the work matters. These days, he sits at home and procrastinates alone, and Jon doesn’t think it’s the right fit for him. He’s still Lovett, still one of the best and brightest, but he doesn’t seem so sure of it himself, lately. 

Anyway. Whatever idea might have started percolating in Jon’s brain when Lovett said it was over with David—that’s not on the table. It was the vodka that made Jon think it was a good idea to hit on a guy who’s actively trying to drink away a recent breakup. 

Maybe sometime later, when Lovett’s feeling better. If Jon can finally get his timing right, get in there with an offer before there’s some other David or George or Steve sucking all the air out of the room—maybe there’s a chance. But that’s not what this trip is about, and Jon’s going to refocus on what matters, on cheering Lovett up, on relaxation and fun and the glories of the interstate highway system. 

He shakes the water out of his hair, turns off the shower, and towels himself dry. “Incoming,” he yells to Lovett, tucking a towel around his waist, and then lets himself back into the main room to find clothes. 

Lovett’s now fully awake, although he doesn’t look happy about it. He’s drained two bottles of water, it looks like, so Jon isn’t surprised when he immediately gets up and heads for the bathroom. “Put some clothes on, you’re indecent,” Lovett mutters, and Jon stifles a laugh as the bathroom door shuts. 

There’ll be coffee in the lobby. That’s the thought that sustains Jon as he gets dressed and smooths some gel into his hair and some deodorant under his arms. He texts Lovett—it seems more practical than shouting—that he’s going to get them coffee, and lets himself out.

The lobby is creepily empty. Jon supposes they’re the only schmucks who slept through half a day of potential Grand Canyon time. He wonders if they can book this room another night—if by sleeping through checkout, they’ve effectively already done so. Even if Lovett decides on going back to LA, they can at least get in some actual time at this actual natural marvel. Jon hasn’t seen it since he was a kid, since Andy was so young his parents had rented a child leash to make sure he didn’t go over any cliffs.

Lovett’s still in the bathroom when he gets back, and he sets Lovett’s coffee on his nightstand. He takes his own to the tiny desk in the corner, which has promotional Grand Canyon material, and starts flipping through for stuff they can do today, and maybe tomorrow. 

The very first page tells him, not in so many words, that they’re morons for having slept through the chance to see sunrise over the Canyon. “Thanks,” Jon mutters, and flips to the next. 

By the time Lovett finally emerges from the bathroom, a towel wrapped high up on his chest the way Jon’s girlfriends have always worn theirs, Jon’s got a rough plan for an afternoon and evening at the Canyon.

“Do you want to have a fancy lunch here, a medium lunch at the Bright Angel Restaurant, or burgers at the Bright Angel Fountain?” Jon asks, keeping his eyes firmly on the brochure.

Lovett makes a noise. “Burgers. Definitely burgers.”

“Okay,” Jon says. “And then we’ll check out a couple of landmarks, hike a bit, watch the sunset at Yavapai Point, and come back here for a late fancy dinner. Sound good?”

“I have no idea what any of that means,” Lovett says. “Sure.”

“Good attitude,” Jon says, and finally lets himself look up. Lovett’s all leg in the towel, the way he’s wearing it, and he’s not a long-limbed guy, but he’s got a runner’s build, shapely calves and thick thighs that make Jon want to—

“Get dressed,” he says, dragging his gaze away. “No shirt, no shoes, no burgers.” 

Lovett laughs, which feels like a victory, and goes to get dressed in the bathroom.

***

Jon insists they avoid looking at the Canyon, at all, until they’ve eaten. He wants it to be special; he doesn’t want the hangry, hungover version of Lovett to scoff.

Particularly under those rules, they don’t linger over the burgers. That’s an understatement—they more or less inhale them, as the first food they’ve had in sixteen hours and the first real meal since they left Los Angeles. The result is they’re heading around the far side of the restaurant to the Rim Trail about eight minutes after Jon hands over his credit card to the cashier. 

The trail is crowded with tourists; there’s a crying baby, and a family having an argument. None of it matters. 

“Okay,” Lovett says, finally. He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Okay, yeah. It’s—yeah.”

“Yeah,” Jon says. He doesn’t have the words for it, either. He thought he remembered it, from when he was a kid, but it’s knocked the breath out of him. “Let’s, uh. Let’s hike for a while.”

“Yeah,” Lovett says again. He doesn’t take his eyes off the view.

The hike Jon’s picked for them doesn’t really deserve the name; it’s a walk, albeit on a dirt gradation. It’s basically Runyon, except overwhelmingly beautiful. Not that Jon’s knocking Runyon, but this is just something else. 

He wishes he were a good photographer, looking at this. He knows he isn’t; he tends to end up with a thumb visible, or the focus on some stranger in the background instead of his friends, or so glared out with light that all the details are lost. He wants to capture this, though—Lovett, with his hoodie tied around his waist, picking his way down the path, staring out at the Canyon. He wants to remember this. 

He gives it a shot, at least, gets a few pictures of Lovett’s back on his phone. They probably won’t come out right, when he goes to look at them in something other than blazing afternoon sunlight, but maybe they’ll still trigger his memories of this afternoon. 

Lovett doubles back to him as he’s putting his phone away. “C’mon, slow-poke. I’m the one with the hangover, you should be lapping me, here.”

“You seem fine,” Jon says.

“I know you have the jawline of a superhero,” Lovett says, briskly, “but it doesn’t actually give you the ability to read my mind or do an MRI or whatever to see how my stomach feels.” 

“What superpower would you want?” Jon asks. “Wait—no flying, no invisibility. You have to pick something else. Like laser eyes, or, um, that thing Ant-man does.” 

“How do you know about Ant-man?” Lovett sounds incredulous, which is, okay, fair, because the answer is, Jon had never heard of him before he saw a trailer last week for the latest Marvel movie. 

Jon just shakes his head. “Or teleporting or something, c’mon.”

Lovett hums for a moment, staring out at the Canyon, thinking about it. “Teleporting would have been good a few years ago,” he says. “Would’ve saved a fortune on plane fare. But maybe, like—what about that vampire one? Thrall. The power to enthrall people.” He cuts himself off, shakes his head. “Nah, no, that’s creepy. I don’t want that one.”

“You _have_ that one,” Jon says. “Are you kidding? You’re enthralling already.” 

Lovett scoffs. “You don’t have to be so—whatever—just because I got dumped, you know. You don’t have to do any of this, actually, so—”

Jon looks, pointedly, at the life-changing vista next to them. “Yeah, you’re right,” he says. “This is a nightmare. Let’s go right back to LA, no stops.”

It gets a laugh out of Lovett, and that’s enough for Jon to get them walking again, arms loose at his sides, feeling the way the uneven terrain is working his legs. He likes it, likes the idea that they’ll be sore in the morning. 

“We shouldn’t go too far,” he says. “It’ll take longer to go back up, and sunset is in, like … two and a half hours.” 

“And then food,” Lovett prompts. “I believe you said you’d buy me anything I want from the super fancy restaurant.”

“I definitely did not say that,” Jon says. “Also, they’re going to be trying to shove us out the door as soon as we finish our entrees. It’s really popular.”

“It’s _March_ ,” Lovett says. “Why are all these people here in March?” Several of the people he’s talking about turn and give him dirty looks, which seem, if anything, to goad him to keep talking. “Don’t they have lives? Obligations?”

“We’re here,” Jon points out, knowing Lovett’s perfectly aware of the hypocrisy and probably enjoying it.

“Exactly,” Lovett says. “Appalling. If we had real jobs and real lives, we’d be off doing them instead.” He turns and smirks. “If you had a girlfriend, you’d be off doing her, instead.” 

Jon catches up and knocks his shoulder into Lovett’s. “There are like a million kids here, take it down a notch.”

“Oh, like they don’t have the internet. Like they don’t know way more than we knew at their age, or, frankly, probably more than we know now. There’s some weird stuff out there these days. You ever open a porn link and just know you’re never, ever going to be able to unsee it?”

Jon unfortunately knows exactly what he means. “No. I’m as pure as the driven snow. Never seen porn in my life.” 

“You know Tommy tells stories about Chicago when he’s drunk, right? Nice try, but I know all your secrets.” 

Jon’s pretty sure Lovett doesn’t know all of them, or the tenor of this trip would be very, very different. “Uh-huh. You know Tommy tells stories about DC when he’s drunk, too, right?”

Lovett says, primly, “That thing with the three guys in the horse harness pulling the cart of twinks was a mis-click and not representative of my personal interests.”

Jon can’t hold back a belly laugh, has to stop and let it out so he doesn’t laugh himself off the cliff edge. “You just made that up,” he says. “That’s not a thing. Is that a thing?”

“I guess you’ll never know,” Lovett says. “Because your porn is all, like, women with long fingernails and improbable breasts touching each other and waiting for the dick to show up.”

“It is not! Lovett, what have you even been watching?” God, there are _so_ many children around. How is Jon supposed to defend his honor in this crowded national park? “It is not,” he hisses again, voice as low as he can get it and still hope to be heard. 

Lovett’s grinning, and it’s that, more than anything, that makes Jon not change topics on him. He wants this Lovett, _happy_ Lovett. Forgetting-about-David Lovett. “Prove it. Give me full access to your laptop.”

“That’s a no,” Jon says. “I’m just going to be over here, confident in my life choices, not requiring outside validation.”

“So—tentacles and stuff,” Lovett says. 

“What? No! That’s not even a—” Jon stops, contemplating his understanding of the world. “ _Tentacles?_ ”

“Trust me,” Lovett says. “It’s a thing.” 

Jon’s lost track of where they are on the trail. It doesn’t matter—it’s really only going one direction—but it’s a reminder that this is the risk with Lovett, always. The way he gets so caught up that nothing else matters. He can’t remember the last ten minutes of scenery, anything about the people they passed, but he can remember every shape Lovett’s face made. 

_Shiv, shiv, shiv._ Lovett’s hurting, and recovering, and doesn’t need any complications. 

Jon shoves his hands in his pockets. “Another twenty and then we’ll head back?” he says. “We might have to jockey for position to get a good view of the sunset, so, you know.”

“Sure,” Lovett says. His voice is less easy, now, and Jon knows he can’t read Jon’s mind, or anything, but it still feels like his fault, for changing the nice friendship moment they were having. For making too much of it. 

They keep walking.

***

Yavapai Point is absolutely fucking overrun. 

Jon’s not sure why he expected different; way more people are willing to watch a sunset than a 6AM sunrise. But it’s still astonishing to see the crowd, especially in, as Lovett points out again, March. 

They wander away, looking for a good prospect without so many people between them and the edge. Without fences, either, but Jon’s willing to be cautious. 

It’s just starting to be something, the light changing. It’s forty minutes until official sunset, but Jon can already sense what it’s going to be, the beauty and the wonder. They’ve been surrounded by beauty and wonder all afternoon, but sometimes Jon has a good sense for how a situation will develop, and he’s looking at this and thinking it’s going to fucking blow them away. 

“Here,” Lovett says, planting them on an edge that no one else has yet claimed. “Do you think we can sit with our legs dangling? Is that completely reckless?”

“Maybe,” Jon says, though it sounds comfortable. They’ve been walking for hours. “Let’s just, like, criss-cross-applesauce it.” 

Lovett drops into the sit like he’s built for it, the way he always gets into strange poses. In Jon’s rental car, he’d twisted into so many pretzels in the passenger seat that Jon had to stop looking at him, some of the drive, or else he couldn’t focus on the road. It’s distracting, the way Lovett can fold his limbs up. 

The sunset comes on slowly, and then all at once. It’s the kind of beautiful that Jon always wants to have the right words for, the kind that makes him think he should try his hand at poetry, some time. Prose isn’t good enough for it. The sunset colors paint across the rock colors, and the combination makes Jon feel fragile, like he could be goaded into crying, if Lovett decided to try. 

They watch until it’s almost full dark, until there’s no question that the show is over. They don’t talk. Lovett’s knee is warm against Jon’s, just barely touching him. 

Lovett’s the first to stand up, finally. He brushes his knees off, and his ass, and puts a hand out to Jon. 

“We, uh—dinner,” Jon says. He doesn’t know how to talk about that sunset, so he doesn’t try. They walk, together, back to the car, and Jon thinks it might be the longest he and Lovett have ever been quiet together, except maybe in a movie theater. 

The car radio’s still on, and that breaks the silence, enough that Lovett laughs. “You’re still treating me,” he says. “In case you were gonna pretend you forgot.”

“Trust me, Lovett, I don’t forget anything you say.” It’s more of an admission that Jon meant to make; the sunset’s still filling his bones with contentment, making him feel weighed down in his seat, held down to the surface of the planet. 

“I know I’m the most fascinating person you’ve ever met—”

“Okay, we _both_ worked for Barack Obama, so—”

Lovett waives off his objection. “I know I’m the funniest and most insightful person you’ve ever met—”

“Judd Apatow still texts me sometimes.”

Lovett sighs, loud and showy. “Whatever, Favreau. You love me. Drive faster, I’m starving.”

Jon drives faster. He doesn’t have anything to say to that.

***

The restaurant is busy, but Jon had been smart and called in a late reservation while Lovett was getting dressed. Staying in the hotel was good for something, apparently, or else they’d just lucked out. It’s a tiny table near the bathrooms, not the height of luxury, but it’s a table and they’ve got a candle and Lovett’s warm and happy in the soft light of it. 

“Good day?” Jon asks, picking up the wine menu so he isn’t tempted to watch Lovett’s face. 

“Not terrible, I suppose,” Lovett concedes. Jon can hear the smile in his voice, the real admission he’s making. “Could have been home playing Bioshock Infinite, but sure, I guess this was an alternative.”

Jon orders them a bottle of white wine, because Lovett’s fussy about reds. Lovett orders the roasted half-duck, and Jon picks, more or less at random, the stuffed quail. “And the crab stack to start,” he adds on impulse, because they’ve been walking for hours and he could eat a horse. Definitely he can get through a quail and some crabs. 

The waiter takes the menus, leaving Jon with nothing to distract himself with. He’s not quite willing to pull out his phone at the table in here; bad enough they’re the only guys in the place without collared shirts. 

Lovett’s staring around them at the decor. “It’s very, you know, committed to the theme,” he says. “I wonder if they thought about doing one of those hyperrealistic paintings on the floor, so it looks like you’re eating suspended above the Canyon?” 

“I think that would be bad for food sales,” Jon says.

“Be particularly bad for alcohol sales,” Lovett agrees, laughing. “‘Oh my god, Bob. Bob, look at the floor! Bob, we’re going to fall into it!’”

“Bob better get his buddy out of here to sober up. Could be a bad scene.”

Lovett hums. “People must drunkenly fall into the real thing, don’t you think? Is that why all the bars close so early?” 

Jon isn’t sure he wants to think about that. “Maybe,” he says. “Or everyone’s getting up early to see the sunrise, so there’s no business after eleven.”

“In the summer, you could roll straight out of a Manhattan bar into the sunrise,” Lovett says. “They should offer that here. Can you imagine?”

Jon can imagine, the same wonder from tonight’s sunset plus the hazy awe of tipsiness. He can also, suddenly and awfully, imagine Lovett tripping and falling over a cliff edge. He shrugs, and examines his own fingernails. 

“You’re not adequately entertaining me, Favreau,” Lovett says. “Tell me a story. What’s been going on in your life? I never see you.”

“You practically live at my house,” Jon points out. “You see me every day.”

Lovett waves a hand. “Irrelevant. What’s Tommy up to? Why doesn’t he visit us more? Is he hiding something? Is he dying of a wasting disease? Is he pregnant?—oh, good, the wine.” 

Jon waits until the waiter’s walked away, and until Lovett doesn’t have wine in his mouth, to say, deadpan, “He’s pregnant. Due in September. Don’t tell anyone.”

Lovett rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning. “Mm-hm. I knew when he moved to San Fransisco he was trying to tell us something. Does he know the father? Was it a condom failure?”

“Yeah, no, it was this whole big bukkake thing—” Jon pauses, glances around. There are a couple of children in the restaurant, but he thinks they’re out of range. 

Lovett’s cracking up, anyway, so it’s worth it. “How do you even know that word? And yet you don’t know about tentacles. Undiscovered depths of perversion. I hope you didn’t watch that stuff in the White House.”

“I didn’t watch _any_ porn in the White House!” Jon says. It’s definitely too loud. At least two people at other tables have turned to look at him. He drops to a hiss. “Are you saying you watched porn in the White House?”

“Only the kind that formed spontaneously behind my eyes when you scolded me,” Lovett says, solemnly. He manages to keep a straight face through most of his follow-up: “Oh, Mr. Favreau, I’m so sorry my copy isn’t up to your exacting standards. Please let me make it up to you.” He bats his eyelashes at Jon. “I’m sure I can impress you with my … oral composition skills.” 

Jon knows he’s supposed to laugh. He _has_ to laugh. He forces one out of his throat, and stares at the soft-looking collar of Lovett’s shirt, trying desperately not to imagine Lovett dropping to his knees. Trying desperately not to imagine Lovett offering himself up. In the White House—in Jon’s little office, maybe, with the door shut, after hours, when they’ve just beaten a deadline and the adrenaline’s flowing, and—

The waiter sets the crab cakes down on the table, and Jon blinks back to reality. “… a baby shower,” Lovett says, and then, “Okay, that deserved at least a pity laugh.” 

“Sorry,” Jon says. “I’m hungry, it’s distracting. A baby shower for Tommy’s imaginary pregnancy?”

Lovett puts a hand to his chest, faux-offended. “Imaginary? _Imaginary?_ Jonathan Favreau, did you _lie_ to me about our good friend Tommy? I can’t believe it. I feel so betrayed.”

“Eat some crab, it’ll make you feel better.” Jon snags some for his own plate. 

Lovett reaches for his wine, instead. “If there’s one thing at this table that’s going to make me feel better, I don’t think it’s crab cakes,” he says.

“Should I be worried? Are you actually going to tip into alcoholism over David? Because he’s not worth it. Like—now you’ve broken up, I can tell you he sucks, right?” He hadn’t sucked, really, is the frustrating part. He’d been fine. Not spectacular, not the kind of incredible guy that Lovett is, but quick-witted and handsome and a dog lover. 

Still. Jon’s entirely ready to nitpick the guy. Obviously something much bigger than just his sharp sense of humor was wrong with him, if he broke up with Lovett. Obviously he’s a moron. 

Lovett swirls the wine glass. “Calm down, this isn’t an after-school special. I just need a couple weeks of numbing, a month of slutting around, a month of working out—”

“I thought, uh, wasn’t there something about shivving people—guys? Wouldn’t that make it sort of difficult to—”

“The verb is shanking,” Lovett tells him, primly. “A shiv is the object. Anyway, whatever. Your cheer-up mission has been pretty effective. At this point I’m okay to not shank over mere sexual overtures. I’m going to be shanking for romantic overtures for roughly—” He pauses, glances at his left wrist, where a watch isn’t. “Let’s say sixteen years.”

“Seems … proportional,” Jon says, cautiously. “What if, uh. What if one of the sexual overture guys sticks the landing?”

“Ugh,” Lovett says. “That’s how I ended up with David in the first place. Where’s the duck?” He’s picking apart the crab cake more than he’s eating it; Jon’s tempted to scoop up the remnants for himself. Lovett would let him. 

Jon reaches for his own wine, instead. He thinks it might steady his voice, if he tries to ask follow-ups. Which he shouldn’t.

“So that might happen again, then. You could end up just sort of … falling into something. Like, tomorrow, you could pick someone up in Amarillo and end up married.”

Lovett raises an eyebrow at him. “First of all, I haven’t agreed to go anywhere past here with you. Second of all, I’m not picking up anyone in Texas. I’d like to see thirty-five.” 

“There are gay people in Texas, Lovett.” 

The waiter interrupts them, setting down Lovett’s duck and then Jon’s quail. They both look mouth-wateringly good, and there’s a long lull in the conversation while they dive in. Lovett passes a heaping forkful of duck to Jon and steals some quail and cornbread. They munch, quietly.

They’re silent, but Jon’s thoughts are racing. Lovett’s never single long. If he’s going to be picking up, he’s going to be dating, whatever he says about shanks. Shivs. He’s a catch—anyone who spends five minutes with him knows it. Anyone he takes home … well, Jon doesn’t know how that goes, but certainly plenty of people have wanted to sign up to do it again. Do him again. 

The wine feels like it’s swirling in his veins. He’s only had a glass; it shouldn’t be doing much of anything. He shouldn’t be having impulsive, irrational thoughts about not being avoidant. About facing things head-on.

“So you should, like … it would make more sense to just skip the, uh, slutting, if you’re trying to avoid relationships,” Jon says. 

Lovett looks up, fork halfway to his mouth. “Are we still on this? Do you not have enough of a life, Jon? Why is mine so fascinating?” 

“You’re the one we’re trying to cheer up,” Jon says, hoping that evades the question adequately. “This trip is, you know, for you. I’m just trying to help you, like, pick a good forward path, that’s all.” 

“Uh-huh,” Lovett says. He flags the waiter down for a wine refill. “I think I can handle it. Now that I’m thinking about it—yeah. I’m over the moping now, I’m ready for stage two. We’ll go back to LA, I’ll download Grindr again, it’ll be whatever.”

Every single word Lovett’s saying burns in Jon’s belly. “No,” he says, too sharp. He can’t unsay it; he tries, instead, “No, we should keep going. It’ll be fun. Hasn’t this been fun?”

Lovett visibly considers something, sips from his refilled glass, then says, sharply, “Not as fun as getting fucked by some jock in WeHo, Jon, if I’m entirely honest.” 

Lovett doesn’t talk like that. Jon has other gay friends who do, who are thrilled to try to make him sweat. One of his friends from college, who hadn’t exactly loved the Catholic atmosphere, went through a three-year phase after graduation during which Jon doesn’t think he’d made it through any five sentences without the word “cock” coming into play. But Lovett’s always been private, in some ways. The porn jokes, okay; he can talk about sex out in the world as easily as anyone else. But not his own. Even drunk, even loose and happy with close friends, he doesn’t get into specifics. Jon knows about as much about what Lovett likes in bed as he knows about the President and First Lady, which is to say: more than the average person, but it still rounds down very easily to zero. 

“Uh—did they spike your wine?” Jon asks, because he has to say something. He can’t just sit here and think about Lovett _getting fucked by some jock in WeHo_. 

Lovett scoffs, and spears the last of his duck. “Okay, sorry for offending your heterosexual sensibilities, Jon. Let me rephrase: not as fun as the alternatives that sunny Los Angeles affords me.”

Fuck. Fuck! None of this is going the way Jon wants it to go. They’re supposed to go all the way across the country. Lovett’s supposed to … Lovett can do what he wants with his own life, obviously, but can he not just stay off the fucking market long enough that it’s not skeevy as hell for Jon to try his luck? 

His jaw hurts; he’s clenching it too hard. He drinks his own wine, too fast. He jiggles his knee under the table. He’s got more nervous energy than one person can hold, right now; he needs to excuse himself to the bathroom and just—do some fucking burpees or something, so he can sit here like a normal person and not—

“We could have fun driving cross-country,” Jon says.

Lovett doesn’t get it; he says, “I’m not anti-road-trip, Jon. I’m just saying, your talk of path-planning has reminded me that there are some good post-break-up rituals that I would enjoy more, and—”

Jon could let him be confused. Jon could let this go, right now.

Jon says, “I’m saying you can work out your post-break-up rituals with me on the road trip. Best of both worlds. All the scenery, all the—” He pauses, trying to figure out if there’s any remotely good way to phrase this. There isn’t. “—orgasms.” 

Lovett is just staring at him, silently. Jon wants to fidget; he wants to laugh, and pretend it was a joke. He wants to grab the bill and hustle them out of here and maybe try to kiss Lovett somewhere they wouldn’t be surrounded by midwestern tourist families. He hopes none of that conversation was audible to anyone around them. 

“ _Now_ whose wine is spiked,” Lovett says, finally. He waves for the waiter, the way Jon’s mom says is rude. It’s effective, though; they’ve got the bill, room number signed to it, within forty seconds. Forty tense, silent seconds. 

Jon shoves his hands in his pockets as he gets up from the table, and follows Lovett meekly towards their room. 

There’s probably about sixteen ways this can go, fourteen of them bad. Jon’s never been one to linger excessively on worst-case scenarios, but he’s not blind to reality, either. Proposition your best friend in a fancy restaurant when you’re sharing a hotel room with one bed, the fallout could be messy. Proposition _Lovett_ , who’s close-lipped about sex, who can be as spiny as a porcupine about many forms of human interaction, who wears his insecurities like a shield—“messy” probably isn’t the right word. 

Lovett opens the door to their room and crosses to the curtains, closing them a little better. It’s only about nine, Jon thinks dimly. Maybe eight thirty. He doesn’t look at the clock, or at his phone. He doesn’t take his eyes off Lovett’s back. 

“So—what the fuck, Jon?” Lovett says, turning around. His arms are crossed over his chest. “Not really your kind of joke. Is there something about this trip I’m not getting?” He glances at the bags, at the snacks. “Is something happening with you?”

Jon shrugs. He couldn’t put it into words even if he wanted to—the pressing need to do something big for Lovett, to cheer him up. To be close to him. To see if there was any possibility of—anything. “You’re my friend,” he says. “You’re obviously—look, you’re sad, and it sucks when you’re sad. I just want you to have a fun trip. I want _us_ to have a fun trip. And if you’re, like—if you want to get laid, then, I mean, I’m right here. No risk of getting arrested for shanking some poor guy in LA.” 

Lovett shakes his head, slowly. “I know you take the bonds of friendship seriously, Jon, but this isn’t like following your buddy to college. You can’t just offer—sexual favors—to keep me in your passenger seat. I’m not saying you’re not hot enough to get away with all kinds of weird things, but I’ve known you too long, I’m enured to it. Your whole—” He waves his hand up and down Jon’s body. “It doesn’t work on me anymore.” 

“That—” Jon doesn’t know what to say, how to respond to that. “I’m not trying to be weird, Lovett. I’d be into it. If you’d be into it, then there we go. Everybody’s happy.”

Lovett shakes his head; he looks confused, and still a little upset. He’s pink-cheeked, maybe from the wine.

Jon’s handling this all wrong. He takes a second to re-seat himself, to picture Lovett as someone else, someone he feels casual about. He’s _good_ at this, at flirting, at picking up. He always has been. And he’d never, ever go about it like this.

“Let me try again,” he says, voice lower, taking slow, steady steps towards Lovett. “Fuck the trip. I’d like us to finish it, but I don’t actually want to kidnap you to Cape Cod. Forget tomorrow. Here, tonight, we’ve got this nice room, and we’ve had a nice meal, and you’re stupidly hot in that shirt, and I’d like to kiss you. Thoughts on that?”

Lovett swallows, looks down at his shirt. “No, you don’t,” he says. It’s weak. “I’d know if you thought I was—this is, I don’t know what this is, but it’s not—real.” 

There’s no way out but through. “Lovett.” Jon puts his hands out, _nothing to hide_. “Seriously. If you just don’t want to, that’s fine, but you have to believe me that I want to. I want to kiss you, I want to touch you—whatever. It’s all on the table, if you want.”

Lovett looks, rarely for him, lost for words. 

Jon raises a hand, slow enough for Lovett to stop him, to Lovett’s jaw, and strokes his fingers up until he’s cupping it in one hand, thumb within easy distance of Lovett’s mouth. Lovett’s still just staring, but his lips part, and when Jon starts to lean down, Lovett meets him halfway, mouth on Jon’s. 

Jon doesn’t know what changed, but he’s not about to question his luck, not when Lovett’s hands are finding his waist and Lovett’s kissing Jon back. 

It’s better than he’s ever imagined it, and he’s imagined it a fucking lot. Just the press of Lovett’s mouth is making him warm all down his spine, pooling in his belly. Lovett even _tastes_ good, a neutrally nice sort of flavor that Jon’s much too busy groping Lovett’s shoulders to find a name for. 

One of Lovett’s hands sneaks down to find skin, just under the hem of Jon’s shirt, and Jon groans. Lovett pulls back, leaning away from Jon but not letting go. He stares at Jon’s face like he’s trying to figure something out, and then he launches himself back at Jon’s mouth, and this time he’s fucking _going_ for it, teeth and tongue, pushing Jon back towards the bed. 

Jon lets himself be pushed, gets his fingers hooked in Lovett’s belt loops to yank Lovett up, too. They’re not saying anything, but there’s no question, now, what Lovett wants, not when Lovett’s sweeping his hands up Jon’s chest, shoving his shirt up to his armpits. 

Jon can’t help himself; he goes right for Lovett’s belt, and then his fly. He shoves Lovett’s shirt up just enough to have a clear path to Lovett’s briefs, and then gets stymied by them, pausing with his hand not quite touching. “Uh—”

Lovett says, in a resigned sort of voice, “Second thoughts?”

Jon almost laughs, but manages to hold it back. “Just trying to figure out your weird underwear.”

“Oh,” Lovett says, and then, “It’s—horizontal, it’s their whole—never mind, just,” and he reaches into a seam near the top and just hauls his dick out. 

“God,” Jon manages, and then it’s back on, full speed. He kisses Lovett hard, and gets his hand under Lovett’s on his cock. It’s fat in his hand, not fully hard but getting there, and Jon thinks about letting go to lick his hand, thinks about spitting, and then, instead, just hauls Lovett up by his ass until his dick is at mouth-height. 

Lovett’s knees are on the bed around Jon’s chest, where his shirt’s still rucked up, and Lovett says, “What—” like he’s lost in the woods, and then cuts off when Jon leans up and sucks him down. 

Jon hasn’t _exactly_ done this, in a technical sense. Or in any sense. But he’s pictured it, and watched porn, and once or twice, in the privacy of his own home, tried out a couple moves on a banana. 

Lovett is nothing like a banana. The taste, the weight—all of it feels new and exciting, and Lovett’s rocking his hips a little, helping Jon keep up a rhythm. Jon’s got a hand free and he could use it to feel out more of Lovett, the parts he hasn’t touched yet, but he needs it on his own dick even more. 

He groans around Lovett’s cock when he cups his own, and Lovett makes an actual sound, curling lower into the bed until his shirt is brushing Jon’s forehead. Jon’s world has narrowed, it feels like, to just taste and smell and feel, and the desperate touch of his own hand. He shoves it under his waistband, needing more.

The part Jon couldn’t have imagined or planned for is the way Lovett’s reacting, over him. It’s mostly breathing, really—harsh and arrhythmic, catching in his throat. But just that feels like the greatest reaction Jon could have asked for, just an overwhelmed Lovett trying to catch his breath. 

There’s a moment where Jon thinks he could stop, they could stop, they could pull back and make out some more and then get off, less frantic, less intense. He lets it pass. He squeezes his cock roughly and tries to suck Lovett harder, not just mouth at him. 

Lovett shudders, and reaches down to wrap his hand around Jon’s at the base of his own cock, so they’re both stroking towards Jon’s mouth. Lovett’s hand speeds them up, and Lovett starts making soft, choked noises into the bedspread. Jon wants to urge him on, wants to tell him he’s perfect, he’s gorgeous, that Jon wants him to come. He wants to make sure they do this again, some other way where Jon’s mouth is free to whisper compliments in Lovett’s ear, all the things he’s wanted to say for years. 

Now, though, he can have this exactly as it is—Lovett’s hand squeezing around his until it almost hurts, and Lovett spurting into Jon’s mouth. He hears, faintly, Lovett saying “ _Fuck_ ,” and it’s that, more than anything else, that makes him speed up his other hand on his own cock until he’s coming in his own boxers. 

Lovett topples over onto the mattress, thigh pinning down Jon’s arm. “Okay,” he says. His breathing is still ragged. “I’ve decided to let you bribe me with sex to drive to the East Coast.” 

Jon’s still swallowing, still dragging his wet hand out of his jeans. “Uh—terrific,” he says. His brain’s not online. 

Lovett wriggles up towards the pillows, freeing Jon’s arm. He’s still wearing his shoes. They’re both still wearing shoes. They’re both still wearing _everything_. “As self-destructive behaviors go, this one’s much better for my liver,” Lovett mumbles. “Go turn the light off.”

Jon manages to lever up to sitting and then to standing. His legs are wobbly. “I’m gonna brush my teeth,” he says. He means, _I’m going to peel out of these boxers before it’ll hurt to get out of them._

“Ugh, you’re right,” Lovett says. “Fine, leave the light. I’ll take the bathroom after you.” He sniffs his own armpit. “I’ve gotta shower in the morning. I can’t believe you had sex with me smelling like this. I’m a little concerned about your taste, Jon.” 

Jon doesn’t know what to say to that; he picks up new underwear and a shirt from his bag and lets himself into the bathroom without answering it. 

Lovett’s up and on his phone when he gets back out. “For sunrise we’re supposed to go to Mather’s Point,” he says, apropos of nothing.

“Uh, yeah,” Jon agrees. “That’s what the guide said. But sunrise is at like six.”

Lovett shrugs. “It’s nine. That’s plenty of sleep. Whatever. It’ll be amazing.” He looks like he’s humming with energy; Jon doesn’t see him falling asleep anytime soon, but then again, he’s seen Lovett tip into full REM in many a stranger situation. If anything has ever been a stranger situation than this. 

Jon shrugs. “Sure, yeah. Set the alarm clock, then.” He watches Lovett set it and cross into the bathroom, and then he lets himself flop onto the bed with an arm over his face. 

This is … good. This is what he wanted. They had sex, _good_ sex, faster and less intimate than he might have meant to go for, but definitely something he’s going to be thinking about when he jerks off for approximately ever. Lovett’s not being weird with him, and they’re gonna watch sunrise over the Grand Canyon and then drive on towards Cape Cod. It’s good. It’s what he wanted. 

Yeah.

***

Jon wakes up, much too early, to the blare of an unfamiliar alarm. He levers himself out of bed fast, so he can’t be tempted to hit snooze, and tells Lovett’s back, “I’ll take a quick first shower so you can sleep another ten minutes.”

Lovett grunts in response, and pulls a pillow over his head when Jon flips the light on.

He jerks off in the shower, thinking about last night, about the weight of Lovett’s cock in his mouth. About those little noises Lovett made when he got close. It’s fast, and leaves him biting his forearm where he’s braced himself against the wall of the shower. It wakes him the rest of the way up, at least. 

Lovett’s still curled into a pillow when Jon comes back out, so he just drops his towel and gets dressed, the way he would if he were rooming with Tommy or Josh, or if they’d managed to get naked yesterday. Lovett’s never been a locker-room guy; yesterday’s chest-high towel is about par for the course, in terms of Lovett and nudity. Jon’s not sure he’s seen Lovett shirtless in all the years they’ve known each other.

Maybe he’ll get to, now. Tonight. Tomorrow. “Hey, time to get up,” Jon calls, kneeling to find a shirt. “Lovett. C’mon. Get a move on.”

Lovett manages to find the energy to pull a hand out from under the covers and flip him off; that’s a start. Jon puts down the shirts he’s picking through and goes to Lovett’s side of the bed. “Seriously, come on. You’ll feel fine once you get up and have some coffee.”

Lovett’s not moving now except to pull the pillow closer over his head. Jon rolls his eyes and throws the covers back. Lovett whines, but doesn’t move to get them back. He’s on his stomach, arms up around the pillows, and his shirt’s rucked halfway up his back, so the dip of his spine is on display. Jon swallows, and thinks about kissing it, about whether that would get Lovett up or just end with them staying in bed past the sunrise. “Don’t make me pour the ice bucket on you,” he says. “I’ll do it. I grew up with a brother.”

“Andy has my sympathies,” Lovett says, muffled but loud enough that Jon’s pretty sure he heard right.

It must work, though, or the loss of cozy warmth does it, because Lovett sits up and lets his head fall backwards, yawning at the ceiling. “This is a terrible idea you had,” he says.

“Uh-huh.” Jon’s just going to let him have that one. “Get dressed. No coffee until you get dressed.”

Lovett says something under his breath that might be “I hate you,” but he gets up and grabs some clothes and carries them into the bathroom.

Jon’s not sure he needs coffee. Getting Lovett up has left him with a grin on his face and a spring in his step. He finds a shirt, packs up the rest of his stuff, and then packs the remnants of their snack bags. Their supply is dwindling faster than Jon anticipated; they may need to find a Target between here and Columbus.

Lovett’s stuff is mostly in his own duffel; Jon waffles, and then tucks the few extras in, his charger and yesterday’s socks. He’d have done it yesterday. Surely that means he can do it today, even if some things have changed. Even if some big fucking things have changed.

He wonders if he could kiss Lovett, after Lovett comes out of the bathroom. He wonders if he can kiss Lovett while they watch the sunrise. That’s probably too—too romantic, too declarative. He’s promised Lovett fun, and he can give that, he thinks. 

Jon’s been good at no-strings most of his life. He’s never managed to be easy like that about some people—Josh, and Tommy, and Lovett, and Alyssa, and the rest of the core group he lets in—but he has the basic skills required. He can do this. He can be casual. 

He stacks their bags by the door and runs down to the lobby to arrange their checkout, since Lovett’s still showering. He’s not the only one, but the hotel seems used to the pre-sunrise crowd; there are enough clerks to go around, and he gets coffees after he’s paid up the slightly horrifying amount they owe for two nights and one dinner. 

Lovett’s dressed and checking the drawers when Jon lets himself back in. “We didn’t use the drawers,” Jon points out.

“Better safe than sorry,” Lovett says, but he leaves it and hefts his duffel over his shoulder. “Is that coffee? Fuck, that’s amazing.” He grabs it and holds it close, and Jon fights down a fond smile. 

He lets himself knock his shoulder against Lovett’s, and then grabs the rest of their bags, juggling them and his own coffee. He thinks he can make it to the car. Lovett shakes his head at Jon and takes one of the snack bags from him, which definitely helps. “We’re checked out,” Jon says. “We’ll drive over, see the sunrise, and head on to Amarillo.”

“How far is that?”

“Uh—dunno, ten hours?”

“It’s five in the morning. We can go past Texas. What’s past that? Never mind, I’ll google it in the car.” 

Jon has ten hours to argue the point; he lets it go for now. He’s got to navigate the route back to the park in the dark, for one, although they’re following enough cars that it’s not a total nightmare. 

The crowd at Mather’s Point isn’t huge, but it’s big enough that they walk off on their own again, find their own edge. This time, they sit without conferring. “So,” Lovett says, once he’s settled. “Anything you need to retract? Decisions you want to un-make? Did you have a blackout of some kind, are we going with ‘I don’t recall’?” 

Jon laughs, because, well. Lovett always makes him laugh. “No, I, uh. I recall really well.” He thinks about it for a moment, decides _fuck it_ and adds, “I recalled it in the shower after I got up.” 

Lovett whistles, then breaks into a laugh. “Fuck, okay. That’s—I think you might be having a third-life crisis, maybe, but … okay.”

“Okay,” Jon says. “So—don’t make me drive past Amarillo. Let’s stop there and, uh. Have fun, while we’re still awake.” 

“You’d be awake in, whatever, Oklahoma.”

“I’ll be a lot more awake in Texas,” Jon says. “If you’re interested in, uh—” He glances around, not that he can see far in this light. “Anything that requires stamina.” 

Lovett coughs, curling forward enough that Jon wants to brace him, even though they’re feet from the edge. “Uh,” he manages, still sounding like he’s choking. “That’s—uh. Good to know. Wow. Subtle, you aren’t.” 

Jon shrugs. “Just putting it out there, if anyone wants to pick it up.” 

“Oh, anyone, is it?” Lovett asks. “Just, you know, the population of Arizona?” His voice rises to a shout. “Hey, Arizona!” 

The shout echoes, and Jon laughs and grabs for him, before he can try any more of that sentence. “Okay, okay,” Jon says, pulling Lovett half onto his lap. “Just you.”

“That’s more like it,” Lovett says. He lets himself flop over, legs uncurling until he’s using Jon’s thigh as a pillow. Jon wants to touch his face; he settles a hand on Lovett’s chest, instead. “I’ll think about it. We’ll have to see what the food options are between here and Texas. You find me a salad, we’ll have a chat.” 

Jon’s never known Lovett to want a salad; it’s probably a joke he’s not quite getting. Anyway, light is starting to curl across the sky; Jon can see the far rim, now. He doesn’t know when that happened. He curls his hand around Lovett’s ribs through his hoodie and whispers, “Look.”

It’s the last word either of them says for almost an hour. Even after the sun’s fully up, it’s stunning. They were just here yesterday—twelve hours ago, they watched this in reverse—and it still feels new.

Lovett’s head is warm on his thigh, tilted towards the Canyon. Lovett’s chest is moving slowly under his hand. Jon doesn’t want to break this silence, or this moment.

His stomach growls, very loudly, right next to Lovett’s ear.

Lovett cracks up, curling forward and tucking his face into his knees, full fetal position on the edge of a cliff. He’s wheezing with it, and Jon can’t help but join in. He can’t hear their laughs echoing, but he wonders if they are, if they’re laughing across the whole Grand Canyon right now. He leans in and tucks his face into Lovett’s side, lets himself catch his breath there until they’re both back to normal again. 

Lovett sits up, finally, shaking his head. “Let’s go feed you,” he says, and pats Jon’s belly. “Since your digestive system clearly doesn’t appreciate the majesty of one of the seven wonders of the world.”

“My stomach’s a philistine,” Jon agrees. He wraps an arm around Lovett’s back, steers them towards the car. “You should have heard it the last time I tried to sit through a science lecture. Talked through the whole thing.”

“Appalling.” Lovett grins at him, so close that Jon has to look away. “You need to teach it to show some respect. Appreciate the world. You can start small, you know? Easy stuff. Monet. Everybody likes Monet.” 

Jon glances back at the Canyon before it’s out of sight. He forgot to take any more pictures after those few of Lovett, yesterday. He’s not likely to forget it, though. He’s not likely to forget any part of the last couple days, anytime soon. 

“There’s food back at the 40,” Jon says. “I’ll last until then. Fish me a string cheese out of the back, maybe.” 

Lovett splits off from him towards the passenger seat, tugging at the door handle repeatedly until Jon finds the keys and pops the lock for him. “I’m in charge of music today,” Lovett says. “We’re going full ‘90s EDM.”

Jon’s mostly sure that’s a joke. He’s … he really hopes that’s a joke. “Mm-hm,” he says. “You’re navigating, too. Don’t let us end up in Flagstaff or something.”

“I did _not_ volunteer for that role. DJing is much more my level.” 

“You own like four CDs, Lovett.”

Lovett laughs, which is probably more than Jon deserved. He digs his phone out and plugs it into the aux cord. “Just get back on the 40 and head east. I don’t think it’s gonna be that complicated.” 

Jon wants to touch him again, now they’re both in the car, now Lovett’s close and laughing and loose. Sleep-deprived, maybe, or—maybe this is what Lovett’s like the morning after, happy and easy. 

He pulls out of the parking space, gets them onto the road, and gets a hand on Lovett’s thigh. Not too high up, not too far over, but it’s still nothing he would have done with Lovett yesterday. 

“If you’re trying to get road head out of me,” Lovett says, “you’re gonna need to wait until we’re on a much emptier stretch of road.” 

“I … wasn’t,” Jon says, “but, uh. That’s on the table?”

Lovett shrugs, and shifts forward in his seat. “Dunno,” he says. “Not in Texas, though, it sure isn’t. I’d like to stay, you know, un-shot. What’s the—there should be a term for that. The state of not having been shot.”

“Intact,” Jon suggests, and then, because he wants to hear Lovett laugh again, “Derma intacta.” 

He gets the laugh. “That Catholic school education really served you well. Anyway. We’ll talk in Oklahoma.” His far leg jiggles, and he drums his hand back and forth on that thigh, thumb to pinky. Jon shifts his attention back to the road and spots the sign for the 40. He has to take his hand off Lovett’s thigh to make the turn. It feels okay, though. It feels like he’s allowed to put it back, when he wants. Lovett’s not a tactile guy; Jon’s seen him physically shy away from touch, if he’s startled. But … Jon’s seen him with boyfriends, too, and the rules seem relaxed with them. 

Jon will take the extra access, if it’s on offer. He merges onto the 40; he puts his hand back on Lovett’s leg, higher this time. Lovett just says, “Music time,” and turns up something pounding and rhythmic.

So the EDM wasn’t a joke. Jon’s touching Lovett, and Lovett’s letting him. He can live with the music. He turns his smile towards the sun and keeps driving.

***

They don’t get all the way into Amarillo. Lovett spots the Cadillac Ranch sign on their way in and demands they stop at the first place they see, a Hilton, so they can go back the few miles in the morning and check it out. 

“I can’t believe I didn’t know that was on the way here,” Lovett says. He hasn’t sounded like this since Jon last let him rave at length about Boyhood. “We have to go to that.”

Jon throws his hands up, and then puts them back on the steering wheel so he can direct them into the circle in front of the lobby. “Hey, I’m not objecting. It sounds fun.” 

He’ll think about that tomorrow, though. All he’s been able to think about for the last hour of the drive is this hotel room, and what they might get up to inside it. 

“Stay here while I check us in,” he tells Lovett, because he has a feeling he might not want to ask for a room with a king bed in Texas while Lovett’s standing right next to him. He’s probably being unfair to Texas. Maybe not, though. There’d been some pretty appalling billboards on the drive. 

They’re in room 405, closer, according to the concierge, to the back entrance. Jon can’t help but make a couple of back entrance puns in his head as he gets back in the car and pulls them around to park. 

“Should I bring the snacks in?” Jon asks. He’s too aware of his voice; it sounds weird inside his head. He’s too aware of his hands, damp with sweat; he tucks them into his pockets, then pulls them back out so he can shoulder some luggage. “I can carry your bag.”

“Calm down, weirdo,” Lovett says, lifting his duffel and a couple of snack bags out of the car. “Was the clerk mean to you? What’s—” He pauses, eyes narrowing, and then breaks into a smug grin. “Oh, counting our chickens, are we?”

Jon shrugs. He wishes he could put these bags down and wipe his hands on his jeans. “No pressure,” he says, trying as hard as he can to mean it. Lovett doesn’t have to do anything. He just … hopes Lovett wants to. 

“Hm,” Lovett says, and shuts the trunk. He strides past Jon, duffel bouncing, toward the back door, and then gets stymied by the fact that both key cards are in Jon’s pocket. “Ahem.”

Jon gets the key card out and swipes them in, and Lovett goes back to striding, finding the elevators and pressing the button with Jon trailing behind him. 

The room is bigger than the last one, but nondescript, mostly beiges with a watercolor desert scene hung above the bed. “Cool,” Lovett says, dropping his bag in the corner. “What is it, eight? Eight thirty? Great. Terrific. You can fuck me.” 

Jon manages not to swallow his tongue, mostly through sheer luck, and sets his own bags down. “Uh—”

“Chop, chop,” Lovett says, although there’s amusement in his voice that belies the attitude. “Do you need instructions? I’m not running a Learning Annex here.” 

Jon wants, so much, to be smoother at this, easier at it. He’s been so fucking smooth and easy in the past, but Lovett’s just so _Lovett_. It throws Jon off his whole game. “I, um,” he starts, but Lovett’s still going. 

“It’s fine, I’ll make it work. Take your pants off and get on the bed.”

Jon’s not an idiot. He takes his pants off and gets on the bed. When Lovett doesn’t immediately join him, he shucks his shirt, too, and even his shoes and socks. Lovett’s digging through the duffel—Jon supposes he can guess for what—and he emerges after a long minute of Jon waiting, mostly naked, on the bed. 

His eyes catch on Jon as soon as he turns around, and the look on his face is … gratifying. Jon could learn to like that look. “All right,” Lovett says, slowly. “Sure. Yeah. We’re doing this. Take the rest off, Favreau, this isn’t a strip club.” 

Lovett’s still fully dressed; he kicks out of his sneakers at the side of the bed and drops his haul—lube and a short strip of condoms—on the nightstand. 

“When did you even pack those?” Jon asks.

Lovett shrugs. “They live in the bag. The condoms might be old, so like, tell me if you’ve got tuberculosis or anything.” 

Jon laughs. “Uh, no,” he says. “And not—you know. Other stuff.”

“Sure,” Lovett says. “Typhoid, whooping cough. Important conversation to have. You’re still wearing underwear.”

“You’re still wearing everything,” Jon points out, and Lovett glances down at himself like it’s news to him. 

Jon wants to climb off the bed and—help. Kiss him, peel the shirt off his shoulders and touch the skin underneath it. Pop the button on his fly and listen to his breath catch in anticipation. 

He doesn’t. He stays where Lovett put him, because this isn’t that. They’re not doing that. They’re having a sex vacation. 

“Hmm,” Lovett says, like he’s running his options, and then climbs up to join Jon, still dressed. “Okay. Let’s—” and then he’s pushing Jon’s boxers down just enough to get his cock out of them. “It’s stupid how good your dick is,” he says, as if that’s some kind of normal comment. “Your underwear choices, on the other hand—really appalling. You’re not 22 anymore, Jon. Women expect better.” 

Jon wants to say something to that—that “women” isn’t the full group he’s trying to impress; that right now, the only category he’s interested in is “Jon Lovetts”—but Lovett’s stroking him, slow and tight, and he can’t find any of the words for it.

He can’t keep himself from reaching up, now Lovett’s in range, and tugging him down to kiss. Maybe Lovett wanted it, too; he groans as soon as Jon’s mouth touches his, and he kisses back as intensely as he had yesterday. Maybe this is just how Lovett kisses, but Jon wants to think otherwise. He wants to think this is Lovett wanting him back, just as much. 

After a moment, Lovett gets his hand moving on Jon’s cock again, and Jon lets his hips rock towards Lovett’s fist. He’s not sure what Lovett’s plan is, but he’s more than willing to go along for the ride.

Lovett breaks off, panting. “Just—stop looking like that,” he says. Jon doesn’t bother to say ‘like what’; he knows a compliment when he hears one. Lovett climbs off the bed again, shoves out of his pants and his own gray boxer-briefs, which do, Jon has to admit, look nicer than his own boxers. 

He starts to climb back onto the bed, and Jon says, can’t keep himself from saying, “Take your shirt off? Let me see you.”

Lovett makes a face Jon can’t interpret, and then peels it off, tossing it to the side. Jon leans up to kiss him again and Lovett pushes him back down. Jon’s never thought—and he’s had some pretty thorough thoughts—that Lovett would be this pushy in bed, but he’s not saying no to it. “Put this on,” he tells Jon, tossing a condom packet at him. 

Jon has about four seconds to wonder what Lovett’s going to be doing—just watching him?—and then he’s watching, open-mouthed, as Lovett pours lube over two fingers and just, just fucking _goes_ for it, stretching back. Jon can’t see, exactly—Christ, he wishes he could—but it’s impossible to mistake what Lovett’s up to. 

“I could … help,” Jon says, and Lovett makes a noise, high in his throat. 

“Just—put the condom on,” he says. His voice sounds strained, or, God, maybe aroused, and Jon wants to go and at least curl up against him, kiss the soft skin behind his ear, but Lovett’s organizing this whole thing and Jon’s going to let him. He puts the condom on, jacks himself a few times, and has to force himself to let go before he gets too into it. Watching Lovett, even from here where most of what Jon can see is his hair and his curled-over back, is—Jon’s not forgetting this in a million years. 

Lovett gasps, wetly, and blows out a breath. He uncurls, wet hand finding Jon’s cock unerringly, stroking it. Those fingers have just been—and now Jon’s going to be— “Oh, God,” Jon says, weakly. He swallows and tries to sound a little less useless. “How do you want me? I can—”

“Just stay there,” Lovett says, and Jon’s heart almost stops. Lovett’s going to ride him? _Lovett_ is going to _ride_ him. Jonathan Ira Lovett is—

Lovett climbs up over his dick and grabs it, pointing it upward, and Jon’s brain whites out. There’s nothing left but sensation, the feel of Lovett sinking down on him, slow and steady and _tight_. 

Jon hasn’t done this in—well, he’s never done this, but with women, a few times, years ago. He thought he remembered it pretty well. He was fucking wrong. It’s like nothing else—the way Lovett’s ass is squeezing him, and the way it’s soft and giving above that, clinging. 

More than that, though; it’s Lovett, and that makes all the difference in the world. Lovett’s grabbing at Jon’s chest, bracing himself, nails digging in. Lovett’s eyes are squeezed shut and he’s got his chin tipped down to his chest, focused. His shoulders look broad and strong like this, and he’s got a soft belly that Jon wants to press his face into, and maybe, another time, his dick. 

Lovett’s rocking over him, gentle movements that are making Jon feel overheated, like the Hilton might have jacked the climate control up to 90. It would be easier if he could move, but he’s not going anywhere, not when Lovett so clearly has a plan, a method. 

He can’t hold in the whine that escapes him when Lovett suddenly rises up and sinks down, one real thrust, and that, finally, makes Lovett look up at him. There’s a soft grin on his face. “Oh, you liked that?”

“I like fucking all of this,” Jon tells him, and lets his hands find Lovett’s hips. “Can I touch you?”

He doesn’t mean it to come out quite so—earnest. Teenage. Lovett, though, looks pleased instead of put off by Jon’s fumbling. “You, ah. Consider it an open invitation.” He pauses, rocks his hips again. “I mean—for the sex trip, not—”

“Yeah,” Jon says. He doesn’t want to hear Lovett spell it out. He’ll take this, if this is what he can have. 

He strokes his hands up and down Lovett’s thighs, and the warm crease at his hips, and up onto his belly. He says, before Lovett can get any self-deprecating remarks in, “You’re so fucking hot.”

Lovett swallows, and gives him another of those real thrusts. Jon swears he feels it in his teeth and his toes, the whole length of his body lit up. 

He goes for Lovett’s nipples, gentle, just testing it out, and Lovett curls his shoulders forward. It’s clear enough; Jon goes elsewhere, to his shoulders and his biceps and his strong forearms. Every place on Lovett’s body that he can reach, except for Lovett’s cock. 

“You’re a tease,” Lovett says, voice straining, and Jon laughs, moves his grip back to Lovett’s thighs. The muscles moving under his hands feel almost as sexy as the way Lovett’s starting to look, focused and hungry. He’s giving Jon more of those long strokes, thighs shaking a little with the strain of it. 

“Ask me for it,” Jon says, feeling reckless. 

Lovett’s hands curl into claws on his chest, nails scraping his skin. “It’s like that?”

“Yeah,” Jon says. This—he wanted _this_ , Lovett engaging with him for real, not just getting off on his dick. He didn’t realize he was missing it until he had it back. “Yeah, it’s like that. Do you want it?”

Lovett groans, grinding himself down onto Jon’s cock. “You’re—” He doesn’t get out what Jon is. His thighs shake, speeding up his movements, all-out riding Jon now. “Just—”

“Ask me,” Jon says again, and Lovett bursts out, “ _Touch_ me, you fucking—jerk me off—”

Jon doesn’t make him wait, except long enough to grab the abandoned lube and slick his hand with it. Just the wet touch of his hand makes Lovett gasp and lose his rhythm; Jon’s squeeze and first pull have Lovett choking on thin air. “Fuck,” Lovett says, finding his tempo again, _allegro_ now, fast and intent. 

If they’d done more of this—if Jon had gotten to explore Lovett, slowly, the way he wants to, he’d know what Lovett likes. He just tries a little of everything, twisting his hand along the length of his cock and thumbing the head and rolling Lovett’s balls in his slick palm. He’s not sure any of it matters; Lovett’s driving them both towards orgasm, and all Jon’s doing is a minor accompaniment. 

Lovett’s headed towards _prestissimo_ , head bowing as his whole body focuses on just working himself onto Jon’s cock. Jon tries to give as good as he’s getting, planting his heels on the bed and shoving up, stroking Lovett’s cock in rhythm. It feels like they’re together in this, both striving, both groaning, both—

Jon comes, stuttering out a few noises that don’t add up to a word, ass arching off the bed. 

Lovett gasps, “Tell me—you can—tell me I don’t have to—” and Jon doesn’t fucking know, but he’s still half in it now, doesn’t need Lovett off him yet. He squeezes Lovett’s cock harder, gets his other hand up, trying for as much sensation as he can give Lovett. He’d suck him if he were flexible enough. 

That’s—he can at least— “I’d suck you if I were flexible enough,” he says, and Lovett chokes on air again. Jon feels the pressure on his cock a moment before he feels the spurt of come in his hands, before he sees the way Lovett’s whole body is taut with it. 

He strokes Lovett though it, even as he’s getting his other hand under Lovett’s hip to help lift him up and off Jon’s sensitized dick. He’s wet halfway to his throat, splashed across his belly and his chest, and Lovett’s hand slides through it as he folds forward. He never quite comes to rest on top of Jon, and Jon thinks about just tugging him down. They’d be wet and sticky, but Jon could wrap his arms around Lovett and kiss his neck. 

Lovett sighs and rolls onto his back, a foot from Jon. He puts his hand over his face. 

Jon peels the condom off and ties it up. He thinks about being the kind of person who doesn’t drop it on the floor to deal with later, and then drops it on the floor to deal with later. 

He waits for Lovett to say anything. It’s quite a wait. “Uh,” Jon attempts, finally. “You—good?” 

Lovett laughs, and rolls up and off the bed in one swift movement, grabs his clothes and books it towards the bathroom. “Yeah, don’t worry,” Lovett says, not looking back at him. “You did great.”

Jon waits until the door closes before he groans and puts his hands to his face. That’s not—for fuck’s sake. They’d done this better yesterday, or at least not terribly. Jon’s not asking to spoon all night, here, he just wants some kind of … human connection to go with the fucking. 

He gets up and transfers the condom to the trash can under the desk, digs out his boxers and a shirt to wear to bed. He leaves the shirt off, because he wants to get some of Lovett’s come—Jesus—off his skin before he puts it on. He packs today’s clothes away, so they can get an easy early start in the morning to the Cadillac Ranch. Or back to LA, if Lovett’s being ornery tomorrow. Who the fuck knows, at this point. 

Lovett emerges, dressed and probably minty fresh, if Jon thought he could get close enough to taste. Jon almost just takes over the bathroom, but— “Seriously, though, you okay? You’re being, uh.” He doesn’t think he should say any of the words he’s thinking out loud. His point’s probably clear enough. 

It’s obvious Lovett’s going to bluster before he even starts talking. “I’m being completely normal,” he says. “You’re being ‘uh.’ You’re as ‘uh’ as me! It’s—” He runs a hand through his hair, and then deflates a little. “Fine, fine. Pardon me for not having the, ah, the post-buddyfuck etiquette down to a science. It’s been a while, you know.”

“Since you—” Jon pauses, reaching for something more delicate than “took it up the ass.” “Uh, had … penetrative intercourse?” He winces. 

“Sexy,” Lovett says, deadpan, but there’s a smile fighting its way onto his face. “I meant since I did any friends with benefits stuff. Not since DC, probably.” He pauses, considering. “Yeah. DC.”

“Who—”

Lovett shakes his head, grinning full-out, now, like some tension’s been broken. “No chance, Favreau. And I’m tired, so go brush your stupid beautiful teeth already and—” He gestures. “You know, get my DNA off your body.”

Jon glances down. “It’s kind of hot where it is.”

Lovett’s mouth twists, but he just says, “Maybe right now, but flaking, dried semen is no one’s idea of hot.” 

Okay. Lovett has a point there. Jon gets up to go to the bathroom, then thinks of something and doubles back to lean into Lovett. “That was really fucking great,” he says, mouth near Lovett’s ear, and kisses Lovett’s neck. “Okay?”

“Uh—agreed,” Lovett says. “Yeah.”

Jon goes to shower. They’re getting up early.

***

They pull up at Cadillac Ranch just after eight, bellies full of Continental breakfast. Lovett stole some buttered toast for the road, and he’s munching on a piece now, flipping through radio channels for something that’s neither country music nor Christian rock. 

“We should get pictures here,” Jon says. “We didn’t really do that at the Grand Canyon.”

Lovett hums agreement, and stuffs down the last of the toast as Jon parks. 

“The angle of the cars is the same as the angle of the Great Pyramid of Giza,” Lovett announces. He’s got his phone out and open to Wikipedia. “This wasn’t the original site. It was moved from two miles east of here.” He points towards the rising sun. 

“I know which way east is, Lovett.” Jon climbs out of the car. 

“Technically it’s private property, but they don’t bug anyone about it. Hopefully we won’t be the first ones that get shot for trespassing.”

Jon’s not too worried. He does, however, wish they’d thought to bring some spray paint. He wouldn’t mind leaving a mark here, even if it’s likely to be covered by some other tourist within the month. A little “JEF was here,” or the Obama logo. 

Maybe “JF+JL” in a heart. 

He tamps that down and walks past Lovett to the first car. It looks like he could spin the wheels on it, but they won’t turn, and his hand gets flaked with old paint when he tries. “It’s cool,” he says, hearing Lovett coming up behind him. “I don’t know. I like it.” 

“Insightful art analysis from one of the country’s leading minds,” Lovett says, but it’s not sharp. “I like it too.” He runs his own hand down the side of the car, like he’s petting a horse’s flank. Jon’s not sure Lovett’s ever even touched a horse, between Long Island and New York and DC and LA. Lovett’s a city boy, through and through. 

Williams is in the middle of nowhere, though, Jon remembers. Maybe there were horses there. Or cows. Maybe Lovett went cow-tipping with the other math majors. The idea makes him laugh, and Lovett turns to look. 

“Did you ever tip cows?” Jon asks, and Lovett looks at him like he’s crazy, which might be fair. “At Williams.”

“Did I—at my extremely fancy liberal-arts college, did I tip cows? No, Jon. I did not.”

Jon loves him so much like this, limned in the morning light, teasing Jon, enjoying the world. He wants to tug Lovett in and kiss him. They’re alone in a field, and Lovett had said—Lovett had said “open invitation.” So he does.

Lovett melts, like it’s easy, like he’d been waiting for this. They’re still right next to the car and Jon pushes Lovett against it, hands beside him on the body of the car. He hopes, distantly, that Lovett’s clothes are pretty replaceable. He hopes, more immediately, that no one drives up suddenly.

He hopes, right now, that Lovett will keep kissing him back and grabbing his ass. 

It’s making him giddy, so much he has to break off from Lovett’s mouth to grin down at him. “Hey,” he says, and rests his forehead against Lovett’s. 

“Hey,” Lovett says, a little hesitant. “We’re still in Texas, I just want to point that out.”

Jon laughs, and pulls Lovett in, squeezing him. “Yeah. Sorry. I’ll—we’ll go look at all the cars. Just, you know. It’s a nice—it’s fun, being here with you. I’m glad we didn’t turn back to LA.”

Lovett, muffled against Jon’s shoulder, says, “I suppose it’s been pretty good. We’ll see what I’m saying in St. Louis.”

“We’ll find something fun in St. Louis,” Jon tells him, pulling back and starting to study the car again. “Like—the arch.”

“The arch doesn’t count as a fun thing,” Lovett protests. “The arch is just—I’m not going out into St. Louis just to see an arch. Veto. Find me an actual point of interest.”

“We’ll google it,” Jon says. “You’ll google it. Come look at the rest of them with me.”

Lovett’s suddenly moving past him, fast. “Race you!” he shouts, like a kid, like they’re—Jon doesn’t have time to think about it, though. He just runs, full out, trying to beat Lovett to the last car. Lovett’s got the cheating start, and it’s a short distance, but Jon’s got long strides and a competitive spirit. 

Jon swears he won; so does Lovett. They argue about it, cheerfully, all the way back to the car, and for half the drive back to Amarillo. Jon eventually says they should just call it a tie. Lovett refuses to surrender. Jon loves him. Jon _loves_ him.

Jon bites his fucking tongue, and drives.

***

They get stuck in miserable traffic on the way to St. Louis. Lovett turns on the radio, at the recommendation of the hastily assembled light-up road signs, to learn that a truck has jackknifed and is blocking all of the lanes, though cars are managing to go around, very slowly and one at a time, on the shoulder. 

“We’ll get off at the next exit and take side roads,” Jon says, trying to be cheery about it. He wouldn’t mind sitting in the car until it’s cleared; it’s the stop-and-start that makes him want to crawl up the walls. 

Lovett hums agreement. “So much for road head,” he says, not looking at Jon. 

“Uh—yeah.” They’re surrounded by already angry Oklahoman drivers. Jon’s not even going to put his hand back on Lovett’s leg right now. “So much for touristing in St. Louis, I’m thinking. Unless you want to stay another day there.”

Lovett actually makes a consideration noise at that. “Apparently you can actually go up in the arch,” he says. “Not just look at it. There’s a little elevator car.” He pulls his phone out and his cadence slows down, skimming something. “Apparently it takes three minutes to get to the top, then you stand around looking at the city. The top of it can hold 160 people—that really sounds like a typo—and the whole thing is built to sway up to 18 inches side to side.” 

Jon’s sweaty just thinking about that—the height, the enclosed space. The _swaying_. “Veto,” he says. “I mean, you can go without me if you want.” 

Lovett puts his phone back in the center console. “Nah,” he says. “What’s after St. Louis?”

“I was thinking Columbus,” Jon says. “It’s a shorter drive, we could sleep in. Or get there early and do stuff.” He thinks about how that sounds and adds, “You know, touristy stuff.”

“Exit coming up,” Lovett says. “Are they going to let you over? Because everyone in the Southwest is supposed to be easygoing, but every car we pass is full of, like, visible rage.”

“Traffic jams suck, and they’re probably all headed somewhere on some kind of actual timeframe, unlike us. Do you even have a day you have to be back in LA?”

“I—” Lovett pauses, and then shifts into another new pretzel in the passenger seat. Jon wouldn’t think anything of it, except suddenly Lovett’s facing almost fully away from him, pointed out the window. “Guess not. Thanks for the reminder.” 

Christ. Not Jon’s best move ever, and he’s frankly too pissy from this traffic to want to work on fixing it right now. An easy chat about St. Louis, he can do. Soothing ruffled feathers—ugh. He wants his own feathers soothed. He supposes that calling Tommy on the car’s Bluetooth would be a shitty thing to do right now.

He does it anyway. “Hey, Tommy! We’re stuck in awful traffic. Please entertain us.”

Tommy laughs, distorted in the speakers. At least someone’s in a good mood this morning. “With what? You heard she made it official, right?”

“Who?” Jon says. “Hanna?”

“Sorry.” Tommy sounds distracted. “I guess you really have been offline. Hillary, she’s running. I know, it’s a shock.” The amusement in his voice is warm. “Lovett, you gonna go back to the mothership?”

Lovett doesn’t answer. “Lovett’s sulking,” Jon says, suspecting he’s going to regret it. “How’s LA? Is it sunny?”

“No, it’s snowing. Yeah, of course it’s sunny. Everything’s the same here, you should tell me about your trip.” 

Jon glances at Lovett, at the back of Lovett’s head. “It’s been great,” he says. “We spent a couple days at the Grand Canyon. Did sunset and sunrise. It’s really something, Tommy. Have you been?”

There’s a gap, finally. Jon signals and moves over a lane. He’s still got a mile to the exit, and he only has to get over one more lane; it’s probably doable, even if no one wants to let him in. 

“Uh, I think once as a kid,” Tommy says. “We mostly did Europe and Florida.”

Lovett laughs at that, maybe despite himself. “Hey, Lovett,” Tommy says; he must have heard it. “It’s fine, make fun of me.”

“Did you fly to Europe, or take the family yacht?” Lovett asks, tone his usual blend of friendly sarcasm. He’s not mad at _Tommy_ , Jon supposes. “When you guys all fly together, do they have to close those curtains behind first class so the glare off of your combined paleness doesn’t blind the other passengers?”

Tommy laughs, delighted. “We don’t travel as a pack,” he says. 

“No, I think the group noun is ‘a Topsiders convention.’ Or a lobster broil if you’re out in the sun too long.”

Jon has to actually turn the volume down on the stereo, Tommy’s laughing so hard and so loud over the speakers. “You’re a trip, Lovett,” he says, finally. “I should have come with you guys. Where are you now?”

Jon pictures this trip with Tommy along. It would have been fun. Probably more of the drinking. Definitely none of the sex. “Uh, Oklahoma,” he says. “We left Texas this morning. We went to the Cadillac Ranch. The, you know, with all the cars sticking out of the ground.”

“Ten cars,” Lovett puts in. “Cadillacs.”

“Oh, I think—that sort of sounds familiar,” Tommy says. “It’s an art thing, right?”

Jon sees another hole in traffic and pulls into it, waves back at the driver who let him in. “Yeah. Lovett looked up all the facts about it. Like, they dug it up and moved it at one point. He’s been looking up all the tourism facts for us.”

“Glad you’re getting into the spirit of the trip you were dragged into.” Tommy sounds like he’s settling in for the conversation, now. “Do I have that right?”

“I didn’t drag him. And he agreed to keep going after the Grand Canyon,” Jon says. 

“I was bribed successfully,” Lovett adds, voice bland. Jon glances at him; he’s mildly untwisted from the window, and Jon thinks he can see a smirk in the curve of his cheek. “Jon’s got wiles.”

“He sent me a picture of the snacks after they were delivered,” Tommy says. “I get it.”

“Uh-huh.” Lovett’s giving it all away, Jon thinks, but Tommy says something else about snacks, and travel, and then they’re talking and Jon’s pulling off on the exit.

Even the exit’s blocked up, but once they hit an intersection, he breaks off from the other traffic and just starts taking whatever streets seem the most open, the least crowded. He doesn’t care where they’re headed; they can find another route. Right now he wants the peace of the open road. 

This is farm country; they’re alone on a poorly maintained two-lane road, speed limit 50, within a handful of turns. Jon sighs and sinks back into his seat, feeling the tension drain out of him. Tommy and Lovett are still going, and as he tunes back in, Lovett says, “We’re gonna stop, I think. Say hi to Hanna for us?”

Tommy says goodbye and hangs up. Lovett says, “Don’t crash,” and gets his hands on Jon’s fly.

“You can’t—we can’t,” Jon says, but it’s weak. Lovett’s diving into this the same way he’s been doing for two days, no time for foreplay, and the whole routine is getting fucking Pavlovian. Jon’s cock is entirely ready for anything Lovett wants to give. 

He’s too weak not to give in, but he can at least pull off the road. He takes the nearest driveway-looking entrance, just packed dirt with no farmhouse anywhere in sight, and hopes the owners aren’t coming around anytime soon. They’re out of easy sight from the road within a hundred feet, and Jon throws the car into park and threads his hand into Lovett’s hair as Lovett crouches over him. 

He tells himself he’s getting this hard, this needy, so fast because he has to, because this is stupid and dangerous and they need it to be fast. He tells himself it’s situational—it’s nothing he wouldn’t be experiencing in this car, in this field, with anyone as hot as Lovett leaning down to blow him. 

He says, “God, that’s it, baby,” and “That’s so fucking good,” and “Can’t believe we didn’t do this in Amarillo, fuck, when we could take our fucking time—are you gonna let me, are you gonna let me work you over in St. Louis? Tell me you’ll—” 

Lovett pulls off him to say, “If we ever get there,” and Jon laughs, tipping his head back against the seat. Lovett’s mouth is so fucking good—wet-hot and suction and he’s got Jon’s fucking number, somehow, like he knew already everything Jon loves. Or maybe it’s the other way around—that Jon loves everything Lovett does. 

He tamps down on that thought and cups the back of Lovett’s head, wondering if he likes that, if he wants Jon to let go, or to hold him down harder. Wondering if there’s stuff Lovett wants that he hasn’t asked for. There’s nothing he wouldn’t try for Lovett. Or, okay, not _nothing_ , just—God, his brain’s not working anymore, he’ll worry about this later. 

“That’s so—you’re so good, fuck, you’re so perfect, your mouth is so good.” Jon can’t stop himself from babbling, the praise falling out of his mouth like it’s coming straight from his cock, bypassing his brain entirely. “So fucking gorgeous like this, I love—” and maybe his brain _is_ playing some role, because he manages to say “—your mouth” with what he’s almost sure was an undetectable pause. 

He can’t brace himself right to thrust, even if he wasn’t trying to keep from doing it. He’s nervous of hitting the parking brake or the gas, or accidentally forcing Lovett’s head into the steering wheel. He just grips the door handle on one side and Lovett’s neck on the other and tenses, so close, wanting this to last and wanting to come all at the same time. 

It’s just these two points of contact—Lovett’s mouth on his cock, his hand on Lovett’s skin—but it feels like he’s blanketed in sex and sensation. It rolls through him, nerves sparkling, and then he’s gasping out a warning to Lovett and coming, crying out in the quiet of the car. 

Lovett sucks him through it, gentle, and then tucks him back in before Jon can even think to. Jon blinks at him, the world coming slowly back into focus. The windows are fogged up, he notices—not outrageously, but enough to show they’ve been sitting here, generating heat. 

He slides a hand onto Lovett’s thigh, turning toward him. “Let me?”

He can see Lovett hesitate, and think about saying no, or later, or “get me back in St. Louis.” He can also see, now Lovett’s upright, how hard he is in his sweats. It’s easy to move his hand a few more inches and feel it out, and Lovett sucks in a breath and tells him, “Yeah, okay.” 

Jon thinks about sucking him. That first time in Arizona had been rushed and strange and Jon couldn’t see anything, and he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it. Just—they’re in the middle of a field, and Jon’s not sure how he’d even bend that way, and it’s so much less intimidating to spit into his palm and get a hand into Lovett’s sweats. 

He hadn’t counted the eye contact into his equation. The way he’s leaning into Lovett, they’re too close not to be kissing; too close to just be watching each other, breathing, lips parted. If they stay like this, Jon’s going to say too much, or show too much. “Kiss me,” he says, throatily, and Lovett leans up and into him like he’d been waiting for permission. 

His nails are sharp on the back of Jon’s neck, keeping Jon close. Jon thinks, listening to him, feeling the weight of his cock, that this is going to be fast. Lovett had liked sucking him this much—or liked the imagined danger, maybe, or the car itself, or—or Tommy on the phone, for all Jon knows. But he wants it to be them, and this, that Lovett got so hard sucking Jon’s cock that he’s going to spurt off inside five minutes. 

Lovett’s barely kissing him back, and his hand finds Jon’s thigh and tightens down on it like a vise. Jon jacks him faster, digs his teeth into Lovett’s lip. 

“Oh—” Lovett sucks in a breath and fucks up into Jon’s fist, and Jon realizes a moment too late that Lovett’s coming all over his shirt. He tilts back to watch, since there’s no fixing it; he wants to see the way he’s made Lovett come, the way Lovett’s cock jerks in his hand as he squeezes the last of it out. 

Lovett sinks back against the seat, head back, eyes shut. “Not the worst traffic jam,” he mumbles. 

Jon can’t pretend he isn’t feeling more charitable towards jackknifed trucks himself, now. “I’ll grab you a new shirt,” he says, and lets Lovett tuck himself back in and find some napkins in the console to mop up with. 

He needs a second in the bracing cold outside of the car, anyway, a second out of Lovett’s sight to think, _I’m in so fucking deep_.

In the front seat, Lovett’s peeling out of his shirt, his pale arms flashing in the light. Jon can’t keep a smile off his face, watching. “In for a penny,” he says, just to himself, and goes to get Lovett that shirt.

***

They manage to find a route to bypass the jackknifed truck, but it’s still slow going. Jon gets Lovett to google for road-trip game ideas, less because they’ve run out of conversation—they never really do—than because he’s nostalgic for the stupid car games he used to play with his family. They start on twenty questions, but they both have the same ways of tricking each other: the atmosphere, my left sock, the concept of speed limits. It gets ridiculous almost immediately. 

“You can’t play ‘the concept of speed limits,’” Lovett objects, laughing. “That’s not an object!”

“Oh, but ‘the entirety of the southwestern plains’ was a fair answer? You can see the entirety of the southwestern plains from the passenger seat? Do you have superpowers I’m unaware of?”

“It’s not I Spy. I don’t have to be able to see it.” Lovett tells him, primly. “Anyway, yes, I do have superpowers. I’m actually Legolas, I can see beyond the curvature of the earth.”

“You’re a hobbit.” Jon shakes his head. “Let’s pick a new game. License plates? Um, ‘I’m going to grandmother’s house’?”

Lovett pulls his phone out again. “Oh, here we go,” he says. “Jon, did you hear that Sean Hannity’s floating the idea of a 2016 run?”

Jon groans. “He is? Jesus Christ. Did Tommy text you? Can you imagine that moron—”

“Okay, one point for me, because you’re incredibly gullible,” Lovett cuts in, laughing. “The object of the game is to convince your opponent that a false fact is true _or_ get them to deny a real fact.”

Jon makes an exasperated face, hopes Lovett can see it without him turning his gaze away from the highway. “Okay, that point does _not_ count.”

“We’ll see,” Lovett says. “Bet I won’t need it.” 

“Bet you dinner that you’ll be down by at least two by the time anyone has twenty points,” Jon says.

“I think we can do better betting terms than that,” Lovett says, with a leer in his voice. 

Jon laughs. He thinks about specifying—something he wants, something that might be worth a bet—but everything that’s coming into his head is too revealing. A massage; a bath together. For Lovett to let Jon touch him everywhere, as slowly as Jon wants. 

“We’ll figure out stakes when you lose, then,” Jon says. “First person to twenty?”

“Deal,” Lovett says. “Did you hear about—”

“Hang on, it’s my turn,” Jon interrupts. “You just went.”

“So you concede that point counted. Fine, your turn.”

Jon snorts, and thinks up something to trick Lovett with.

***

They pull up in St. Louis at an atrocious hour. “So much for dinner at the Lemp Mansion,” Lovett says, yawning. “It’s supposedly haunted, I don’t know. They probably do night tours, but—” He waves his hand. Jon doesn’t need help to interpret ‘fuck that, it’s late.’ “We can do—there’s a weird statue of a giant clawing his way out of the earth? Or there’s a museum about dogs. I don’t know. Fuck it.”

Jon laughs. He’s too tired to want to go anywhere, or even think about what they could go see tomorrow. “Yeah, maybe,” he says. “We can decide over breakfast.”

The room’s a room. Jon’s stopped caring, much, about features that extend beyond running water and a soft bed. He’s not as bone-weary now he’s out of the car, but it’s still all he can do to make himself haul out his dopp kit instead of dropping into bed immediately. 

They brush their teeth together at the sink. It makes something in Jon’s heart clench, but he pushes that down and just finishes brushing. 

He decides there’s no point being coy, at this point, and strips in the open air of the room, reaches for a pair of boxers to sleep in. “Leave ‘em,” Lovett says, behind him. 

Jon doesn’t care, anymore, about the hour. He turns the light off and follows Lovett into the bed, and lets Lovett kiss his neck and line their bodies up. They rock together, slow and easy, as much energy as either of them has left for the day, and Jon listens to the sweet noises Lovett makes against his skin. 

He thinks, _I could get used to this_. He thinks, _I haven’t gotten off like this since high school_. He thinks, _we both need a shower. Maybe we can take it together, tomorrow._

He thinks other things, and shoves them down. 

“So good,” Lovett murmurs. He’s quieter, too, in this heavy darkness. Jon pulls him up to kiss, and Lovett slides a hand between them to cup both of their cocks. Jon might have gotten off without the extra sensation, but it’s better like this, in Lovett’s sure grip. 

Lovett breaks off the kiss again, and Jon tucks his nose into Lovett’s hair and breathes him in—the unwashedness of him, but also how close he is, how real. How they’re touching all down their bodies. He comes like that, thinking about how Lovett’s holding him. 

Jon hasn’t slept touching anyone in years, but he wakes up tangled tight against Lovett, sheets twined so thoroughly around them that he has to wriggle upwards and out. He didn’t—couldn’t—stay pressed up next to warm, soft, morning-breath Lovett, imagining something more than it is. 

“Columbus today,” he says, instead, and climbs into the shower. He leaves the door open; Lovett doesn’t join him.

***

They skip the tourist traps of St. Louis, but there’s one near Columbus that Lovett insists on. 

“People call it ‘Cornhenge,’” Lovett had reported to Jon over breakfast at the hotel. “It sounds, uh. It sounds very midwestern. We should go see it.”

“We can go there before dinner,” Jon had suggested. “It’s only about six hours to Columbus. Unless you want to spend, like, more than half an hour there.”

Lovett had agreed half an hour would be plenty, tucking his phone away and putting his sock feet up on the dash. He’d turned the topic to roadside attractions, to the likely Republican primary candidates, to the theoretical underpinnings of traffic management. He’s got an idea for a pilot that he says he thought of on the drive to Amarillo, and he bounces the outline off of Jon, polishing it, taking notes on his phone. 

They’ve been on the road together for five days, almost, and there’s still so much to talk about. Jon never, ever gets tired of talking to Lovett, even when Lovett’s hungry and cranky and they snipe at each other. 

He’s got to tell Lovett. Last night, in the hotel—that had been more than just sex, to Jon. The closeness of it, the familiarity; Jon couldn’t do that in the light and not give everything away. He’s not sure he can do any of this, anymore, without feeling it fully. Without Lovett seeing how much he feels. 

He has to tell Lovett. _After_ Cornhenge. It doesn’t seem like the right kind of place to reveal intimate romantic feelings. 

Lovett’s out of the car at the tourist trap almost before Jon finishes parking, phone at the ready. “We have to get pictures with the corn,” he announces. “This is a vital memory of how ridiculous this whole trip is.” 

The whole thing is bigger than Jon was expecting, a huge field of cement ears of corn. They must be twenty feet apart, and Lovett announces that there are 109 of them, and two rows of osage orange trees at the far end. “Not sure what that has to do with corn,” Jon points out, and Lovett shrugs. 

“There were four different molds,” Lovett tells him, instead. “They aren’t all identical. We should find the four different types. Become experts in identifying which mold produced which statue. It’s a niche field but—”

“Ha, field,” Jon interjects.

“It’s a niche _area of study_ ,” Lovett continues, “but it’s got value. Brings something important to the world, you know.” 

They figure out three of the molds easily— “There, look at the weird kernel on this one. I think I’d cut that off with a knife before I buttered this guy. That just doesn’t look right.” 

“Let’s not talk about buttering guys in front of the corn, Lovett.” 

Lovett smirks up at him. “Find me the other one and we’ll talk buttering at the hotel.” 

Jon should probably be embarrassed by how swiftly he starts focusing on categorizing the kernel structures until he can confidently distinguish the four types. 

“Okay, a picture with each,” Lovett says. “C’mere.” 

Jon tucks in close to him, and takes over the phone— “You have longer arms,” Lovett tells him—so they can get a grinning selfie in front of four distinct corn statues. 

“No one else is going to be able to tell they’re different,” Jon points out, handing the phone back to Lovett.

“They’re philistines,” Lovett agrees. “Whatever. I’m sending this one to Tommy and Spencer and my mom. Any objections, name them now.”

Jon shrugs. It’s a nice picture. They look happy. Lovett looks happy, which is as much as Jon needs. 

He says, even though he shouldn’t, “You look happy. Like—a lot happier than you were before we left LA.”

Lovett doesn’t look away from his phone, still tapping out a message to Tommy or Spencer or his mom. Maybe all three, in some strange group text situation. He shrugs acknowledgment. 

“Just, you know. That’s all I wanted, was to make you less sad,” Jon tries. “So I’m glad you’re less sad. That’s all.”

Lovett shrugs again. He’s tilting away from Jon, not hugely, but enough that Jon’s noticing it, more of Lovett’s back pointed at him now. “Well, a ton of orgasms will do that.”

Jon screws up his face—Lovett can’t see him, anyway—in frustration, and then lets it drop. “Yeah, no, sure,” he says. “But also the—I mean, the trip’s been fun, right? The tourist stuff and the snacks and talking in the car?”

Lovett shrugs _again_ , like it’s his new fucking favorite thing, and starts walking toward the car. “Sure,” he says. “I’m gonna send this to Dan, too. Or should I just put it on Instagram? I should just put it on Instagram. Are we getting back on the 40?”

Jon scrubs his damp palms down his thighs and takes a long breath. He lets it out, and follows Lovett towards the parking lot. “Yeah. I don’t remember the turns, you better navigate.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Lovett says, and pockets his phone. “I’ll do my social media blitz from the highway.”

Jon’s stomach hurts, and he’s sure it isn’t from the omelet bar at the Embassy Suites. It’s not as though Lovett hadn’t told him, right up front, he just wanted to fuck around to get over David. It’s not like that wasn’t exactly what Jon offered to do. Jon’s the asshole, here, wanting more than they agreed to. Lovett’s just—Lovett just thinks this is a sex trip, with some weird touristy stuff jammed in between fucks. No more, no less.

 _Jon’s_ having fun, or at least, he was. He can just enjoy this for what it is. It’s an improvement, really. He’s still friends with Lovett, and now he’s gotten to touch him, and kiss him, and hear the sounds he makes when he comes. That’s a—surely, that’s an improvement on the status quo. Surely, that shouldn’t make him worry he’s about to throw up under a cement statue of an ear of corn. 

“I’m hungry,” Lovett announces, his phone in his hand again. “I’m making us a reservation at a, uh, they’re calling it a ‘stylish gastropub,’ but I’m going to assume that means expensive burgers with avocado on them.” He turns back to look at Jon, and Jon almost smiles at how obvious it is that Lovett’s trying to make nice, trying to be easy. “I might even pay, how’s that?”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Jon says, forcing his own ease. Lovett doesn’t deserve this tension in the air, over Jon’s stupid, impossible wishes. “You’ve still got the drive to find a reason it should go on my card instead, I’m betting you’ll think of something.” 

“You wound me,” Lovett says, hand over his chest. “This is homophobia. I’m being attacked.” 

Jon snorts, but something in his stomach settles, a little. At least Lovett’s still here, with him, being light with him. At least he hasn’t fucked that up. 

“Get in the car, Lovett,” he says, and hits the unlock button on the fob. “Sounds like we’d better get you to that gastropub.”

***

Lovett’s stylish gastropub is, indeed, a place with pricey “gourmet” burgers. He does pay, with a dirty smirk that should make Jon feel excited about the long hotel hours stretching out in front of them—even with Cornhenge, they made it to dinner at seven—but mostly makes him feel like he wants to put off leaving the restaurant. “We should find a bar,” he suggests, but Lovett just leers wider.

“We should find a hotel,” he says, and gets up out of the booth. He makes a show of grabbing a mint on his way out and popping it, and pocketing a couple of spares. 

Jon’s not sure he’s ever felt less aroused in his life. He wonders if he can plead the heavy meal, the beer, the driving. He’s tired; they’re both tired. Lovett doesn’t look it right now, though, a skip in his step as he heads toward the car. 

It should be enough for him, this thing they’re doing. It seemed like it could be enough for him, in Arizona and Texas and Oklahoma and Missouri. It seems so much less like enough now they’re two days from the coast, two days from having to decide when to fly back. Now that they’re nearing familiar places. 

They could have gone to Chicago, easily; Jon directed them away, because this whole trip is out of time. He’s disconnected it from their real lives. He thinks, trying to keep it off his face, that this must be what Lovett likes about it: nothing real, nothing that matters. Nothing that they’ll take home with them. They’ll go back to their own houses and Lovett will come over all the time, but they won’t do this, they won’t even talk about this. 

Jon can see it in front of him like a vision: they’ll be awkward for a month, and then Lovett will start dating someone, or Jon will, and it’ll get easier and more normal. It’ll just be this thing they did, once, two weeks of madness across America. He’ll just always know what Lovett likes, what he wants. He’ll always know that what Lovett wants is … not Jon, except as a fuckbuddy. 

“I’m feeling kind of, you know,” Jon says, hoping that gets his point across. He gestures vaguely at his stomach. 

Lovett slides a hand onto his waist as they exit the restaurant onto the sidewalk. “I’ll make you feel better,” he says. There’s an easy laugh in his voice that Jon doesn’t want to kill. He just … also doesn’t want to have sex, feeling like this, feeling like they’re on completely different pages. 

“I really don’t feel great,” Jon says, and Lovett, to his credit, immediately changes tone.

“Should we stop at CVS? I think I saw one on the drive. Do you want me to drive? I can drive.” 

Jon takes a long breath. Lovett being a good guy isn’t actually helping him not be stupidly in love, and stupidly conflicted. “I’ll just—let’s just find a hotel,” he says. “I just want to lie down, I think.” 

“Okay,” Lovett says. “Tell me if you want to stop, though. Or if you want, uh. You know, I can sit in the lobby for a while if you want, you know, not to be overheard in the bathroom. Or … smelled. You get me.”

“I do. Everyone in the vicinity gets you,” Jon says, smiling despite everything. “I think I’m okay. Let’s just go.” 

They end up in a Ramada, because it’s the closest, and Lovett tells Jon to stay in the car while he gets them a room. “Just, you know, sit here. I can handle getting a hotel room, I’m an adult.”

“You’re wearing drop-crotch sweatpants,” Jon points out. 

“Avoids the dick-print problem. That’s just sensible. That’s _proof_ I’m an adult, Jon. Try to keep up, here.” Lovett climbs out and disappears into the lobby, and Jon tips his head back against the seat and closes his eyes. 

He has to tell him. He can’t—he can’t just go back to LA and watch Lovett go back to his regular life, find some new David. Not without at least saying something. Lovett had made it clear he didn’t want a boyfriend, but that’s—that’s broad. That’s not specific to Jon. Jon needs to know if Lovett means no to Jon.

Lovett opens the car door again, and hands Jon a key card. “I’ll carry everything. You okay? You need longer?”

“I’m okay,” Jon says. “Thanks, though. Maybe we can watch a movie or something. Sorry about, um—”

“Make it up to me in New York,” Lovett says. Jon gets out of the car.

***

Jon chickens out. He chickens out in Columbus, where the thin walls of their room make it too easy to imagine the neighbors hearing. He chickens out on the drive towards New York, because there’s real traffic, even if it’s moving fast, and he doesn’t want to risk a fight that could endanger them. 

Those are excuses. Mostly, he chickens out because Lovett’s warm and funny and attentive, when he thinks Jon’s feeling sick. Jon tells himself it’s fine, because he _is_ feeling sick. It’s just not the kind that’s helped by Lovett bringing him crackers and flat ginger ale. It’s the kind that’s both helped and hurt by Lovett climbing into bed next to him, flipping channels to find them a movie to watch, arm pressed against Jon’s. 

It’s too fucking easy to picture this warm familiarity around him all the time: the Lovett that lets himself into Jon’s house being just as comfortable letting himself into Jon’s bed, into Jon’s shower. Waking up soft-edged and a little grumpy on weekend mornings, sitting up to accept a cup of coffee and lean into Jon’s arm against the pillows. 

He keeps chickening out. 

“We should stop outside of the city,” Jon says. 

Lovett hums agreeably. “I would have said Ronan can put us up, but we probably shouldn’t fuck in his guest bedroom.” 

“… Yeah,” Jon says. He has to tell him. Maybe in this hotel room. Maybe he can just not care about who hears them. It’s only six; they made good time from Columbus. Maybe no one will even be in the rooms around them yet. 

He pulls up at the first vacancy sign he sees. “Might as well,” he says, and Lovett plants a hand on his thigh, misinterpreting Jon’s meaning. Which is in Jon’s power to fucking solve, so— “I’ll get us checked in,” he says, and scootches out from under Lovett’s hand. 

Their bags have been getting less kempt since LA, and as Jon sets his down on the chair by the bed, he thinks very seriously about putting this off longer so he can pull everything out and repack it. 

He might have actually bought the time that way, except that Lovett comes up behind him and gropes his ass through his jeans. 

He steps away from Lovett’s grip, says, “Uh, look, we should talk,” and when he turns around, Lovett’s gone pale and is backing up. He looks _distraught_ , like Jon’s just said something much worse than he thinks he did. 

Lovett recovers, after a moment, wipes the emotion off his face. Mostly off. “No worries,” he says. “I’m gonna get a Diet Coke from the machine, you want anything? I might be awhile. Gotta go … make change. Might take a walk.”

Jon’s got a hand on his arm in three long strides. It’s not a big room, this close to the city. “Hey,” he says. “Wait, hang on. I’m not—it’s not—”

“It’s not my straight friend regretting striking a weird, like, sex deal with me so he’d have companionship for his third-life-crisis road trip?” Lovett says, one big rush of words like he’s practiced that, somehow, like he’s rolled it over in his brain before. He tugs at Jon’s grip; Jon doesn’t let go. 

“No,” Jon says. He laughs, and then regrets it, when Lovett’s face closes down even more. “Sorry, no, it’s—Christ, Lovett, it’s the opposite of that.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Lovett says. He’s not looking at Jon—or not at Jon’s face, anyway, gaze fixed somewhere around Jon’s shoulder. 

Jon lets him go, and sits on the bed, elbows on his knees. He resists the urge to cover his face. “I don’t want to get shanked,” he says, quietly. 

“You—” Lovett pauses, voice tight. “Are you hitting on me?”

“Yeah,” Jon says. “Yeah, that’s—basically. Yeah.” 

There’d been a version of this, in Jon’s head, where Lovett was overjoyed. Where Lovett wanted him, too, not just in bed but in his life. Where they’d kissed and murmured sweet things and sometime, after hours of that, made love. 

That’s not what Jon’s getting. 

“Is this new? Is this—did you catch something in Columbus? Was it the burgers?”

“No,” Jon rushes to assure him. “No, God, I’ve—it’s been—a long time.” He doesn’t know what Lovett wants to hear, so he tries a little of everything. “Since, I don’t know, since you left the White House, I think. Before then, maybe, but I didn’t know what the feeling was, you know? It took me a while to sort it out. But you’re—” He gestures towards Lovett. “You’re amazing, so of course, yeah, I’ve wanted—I want to, um. To be with you.”

Lovett doesn’t look reassured. Lovett looks the fucking opposite of reassured. He’s not speaking, but it’s so clear he’s working on a response that Jon bites back the urge to fill the silence. 

Lovett steps away from Jon, towards the low dresser where they’ve dropped all their pocket gear, the key cards and wallets and phones. “You want to be with me,” Lovett says, again. “You’ve wanted it for literal, actual years.” 

“Yeah,” Jon says, and it sounds bad in the open air, suddenly. He needs to think of something to say to explain, but Lovett’s back is to him and Jon’s tongue-tied, nerves catching up to him. He’s not good at this, at open conflict. He likes a good Twitter fight, behind the keyboard, with people he doesn’t care about. Not a fight about something real and personal and intimate, with the person he cares more about than anyone.

Lovett speaks again, finally, voice breaking the silence. “So when you asked me on this trip, you already had designs on—you were—” He stops, breathing heavily, his back moving up and down. “When I told you that I’m not looking for a relationship, and you said ‘let’s fuck across the continent,’ you were just completely lying to me.” 

It’s not stated as a question. 

“Lovett,” Jon says, and Lovett shakes his head. “It’s—I mean, yes, but I wasn’t—I thought it would be okay, if it was just, you know, sex. I didn’t mean to—I was gonna set that part aside and just, like. Enjoy what I had.” He knows, the moment the phrase escapes his lips, that he’s made a terrible error. He doesn’t need to see Lovett’s face come up, suddenly in view, with his chin wrinkling and mouth pinching up. Lovett on the verge of tears makes a distinct non-sound, the kind of tense, awful silence Jon’s only experienced a handful of times, and would happily never experience again. 

He stands up. “Lovett, please don’t—” but Lovett’s gone, out the hotel door with only his phone and his wallet in his hand. 

Jon waits for half an hour, thinking Lovett’s gone for a walk to cool down. He waits for another half an hour, thinking Lovett’s gone to get food, sat down with a beer at a diner, maybe. He waits another hour, lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, thinking he’s a terrible fucking friend and a schmuck and Lovett’s probably drunk in the hotel bar, waiting him out, hoping Jon falls asleep. 

Twenty minutes after that, when he’s in the shower, his phone beeps. 

He swears and climbs out, dries his hands on a towel and grabs for it. It’s not from Lovett; it’s from Ronan. _Jon’s here. He didn’t want to text you but I figured you should know he’s safe. Getting exceptionally wasted on my Glenlivet, but safe._

Jon sets the phone down. He climbs back into the shower, curls up on the floor of it with his knees to his chest, and stays there until he can’t bear the water hitting his skin any longer.

***

Jon has possession of nine of Lovett’s shirts, seven pairs of boxer-briefs (all made by the same company), two identical pairs of sweatpants, two pairs of jeans, one pair of shorts, six pairs of socks, two books, a laptop and charger, and a dopp kit. He folds up the clean clothes and repacks Lovett’s suitcase, shoving the dirty ones into the laundry pocket on the side. 

He repacks his own, after, and then starts sorting through the snack bags, pulling out the empty or mostly empty bags and containers and rearranging the rest. Most of what’s left isn’t appetizing, but then, Jon doesn’t think he’s likely to have an appetite for a while. 

He eyes the Tito’s, and then packs it. There’ll be plenty of time to get drunk in Cape Cod, alone. He’d drive tonight if it weren’t so late; he doesn’t want to be in this room anymore, thinking about Lovett running away from him. He’s googled the transit; Lovett must have walked for twenty minutes to catch a train into the city, or caught a cab. He didn’t just stumble upon a station out front, or anything. He left the room, and he went to Manhattan. That’s how far he wanted to get from Jon. That’s how sure he was he wasn’t coming back. 

Jon punches a pillow, and thinks seriously about throwing something heavier across the room. He flops down, instead, and covers his eyes with his hand. He could call someone—Andy, maybe, or Josh. He could try to explain, and get some advice. That would be the smart thing to do. 

He can’t imagine saying any of it out loud, though. _I’m in love with one of my best friends, and I talked him into taking a road trip with me. Then, when he wanted to go back, I bribed him with sex to keep going. Only instead of just keeping it like that, I stopped having sex with him and tried to tell him I love him, which I didn’t even get to, because I’m a useless, avoidant douchebag, and also, mostly, because of the whole part where he found out I lied to him. Twice._ He laughs into the empty room, joylessly. “Christ.” 

He’d hate him, too, if he were Lovett. That’s not much of a thought to rock himself to sleep with, but it’s what he’s got.

***

Jon’s up and out of town, headed for Cape Cod, before sunrise. He’d slept, sort of, but woken up so often that around 4AM he’d just gotten up, grabbed the bags, and headed down to find a very surprised lobby clerk to check him out. 

The road’s familiar, once he’s close enough. It’s not high season by any stretch of the imagination, so he doesn’t think he’ll have trouble finding a room. Maybe he’ll stay a week. Possibly, probably, he’ll be too angry and sad to enjoy it, and he’ll be on a plane back to LA by tomorrow morning. 

He wonders what Lovett’s doing right now, in New York. Well—sleeping, but what he’ll do when he gets up. He wonders, stomach churning, if he’ll be waking up in the guest room or … not. If he’ll find it just as easy to fall into Ronan’s bed again as he did into Jon’s in Arizona. 

Jon hits the steering wheel, and forcibly redirects his thoughts away from any of that. He’s not going to turn into some dirtbag who thinks he owns Lovett, just because he’s fucked everything up. He’s got no right to speculate on what Lovett might need, right now. Jon would—well, no. Jon wouldn’t, but that’s different. There’s probably a friendly ex of his in the vicinity who he could call, who’d welcome him. He’s got a few, and mostly on this coast. 

The difference is, Lovett’s getting over a breakup. Jon’s got to get over _Lovett_. It’s impossible. He couldn’t do it when Lovett left the White House, and that was just missing his friendship, his attention. Now—Lovett practically lives in his back pocket. Jon’s gotten used to having Lovett around all the time, keeping him on his toes, funny and fascinating and sharp, always. Jon wanted, so fucking much, to get used to those scant few days of being able to touch him, and kiss him, and just _look_ at him without it being weird. 

Jon sucks in a breath and takes his foot off the gas. He’s going too fast. It’s too easy to go too fast, without Lovett making grumbling noises every time the needle passes 70. Jon’s not even wearing a seatbelt. Lovett wouldn’t let him get away with that. 

“Fuck!” Jon shouts, just to himself, just to the fucking car. There’s a rest stop ahead; he pulls off and parks, climbs out of the car on shaky legs. He needs coffee, or a fucking benzo, or something. He needs to get to Cape Cod. He needs to eat something, probably, but the idea turns his stomach. 

He gets coffee and manages to chitchat with the barista for a minute, even, like a normal human being. 

He doesn’t have Lovett in the passenger seat to google for hotels, so he sits in the empty rest-stop dining area and searches for himself. He ends up with a booking at the Anchor In. Horrifyingly, that name turns out to be intentional, rather than a typo, but it’s a waterfront spot with harbor-view rooms available. He’ll have a balcony, even, not that it’s warm enough to sit outside. He rubs the bridge of his nose and walks back to the car. 

The sky over Hyannis Harbor is windy and clear when he pulls in, and he stands, shivering, outside the car for a long moment just to look at the sun glinting off the water. Tommy’s right that they have this in California, too, but this one still feels like Jon’s ocean, the one he grew up with. The Pacific still sometimes feels disorienting, like it’s in the wrong place. 

He checks his phone. Tommy’s texted, once, just a picture of a dog he saw on the street. His dad’s emailed him about the Hillary announcement, with “you should try to get her as a client” worked into it. Jon loves his dad, but it’s remarkable how much he still seems to think Jon is a kid in need of life advice. 

Maybe Jon is, though, he thinks, hauling Lovett’s bags out of the car. Maybe he’s still a fucking kid who can’t make good decisions, who ruins good things. 

His room has a gorgeous bay view, and he drags the armchair up to the balcony doors so he can stare at it, out of the cold. He’s got days of twitter to read, and that’s at least a distraction, scrolling endlessly through hot takes and pictures of people’s dogs. He tweets a photo of the hotel brochure, with the sand dunes and the balconies equally prominent, to make up for his days of silence. He captions it _Apparently, not a typo._

He doesn’t get out of the chair until sunset, and then only long enough to piss and order room service. He’s still not hungry, exactly, but he’s pretty sure he’d better eat if he doesn’t want to fall over. Or: he’d better eat if he’s going to get wasted. He’s still deciding that, in that the idea’s percolating in the back of his brain while he scrolls. He’s onto Facebook, now. It’s worse. He should put it down and do something actually relaxing—take a bath or watch a movie—but it’s easier to just scroll a little more. 

In the end, he doesn’t get drunk for the very simple and stupid reason that he falls asleep in the armchair, room-service tray next to his feet.

***

He wakes up to a knock. 

It’s pitch black out, except for the harbor lights, and Jon squints into the darkness as though the knock might have come from the balcony. It hasn’t; he hears it again, louder, on the door from the hall. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes and goes to answer it, hoping the hotel isn’t having an emergency or something. He’d been woken up once, years ago, on a trip with the Senator; they’d had to evacuate to another hotel at 2AM because of—he doesn’t remember, now. A bomb threat, he wants to say, but it might have been something much more benign, a minor electrical fire maybe. Tommy would know. 

He flips the light on and opens the door, still pondering it, to see— “Lovett?”

Lovett pushes past him, into the room. “Did I wake you up? Never mind. I can see the bed. Why weren’t you asleep, it’s—I mean, _I’m_ up, but you don’t keep these hours. Do you?”

Jon just blinks at him. He’s not sure what’s happening here. The torrent of words isn’t helping. He reaches over, subtly he hopes, to pinch the soft skin of his forearm. It hurts. This probably isn’t a Christmas Carol-style dream in which Lovett guides him through the mistakes of his past, present, and future. 

He says, feeling sleep-dumb, “Is there a tracking device on your laptop?”

Lovett pauses his tirade and turns to look at him. “You tweeted your location. Which is just about the stupidest thing you’ve done this week, except for all the other stuff.” 

Right. “So—not that I don’t deserve it, but you came all the way out here to yell at me?”

“Maybe,” Lovett says. He pulls the armchair around so it’s facing the room, and drops down into it. “Tell me what the fuck you were thinking, and we’ll see how much yelling I decide to do.”

Jon supposes that’s fair, as far as any of this goes. He sits on the edge of the bed, and then stands up again. “Wait, does Ronan know where you are? I should text him—”

“He loaned me his car,” Lovett says. “He knows where I am. Don’t try to distract me.”

Jon sits back down and rubs his hands on his thighs. He’s glad, at least, that he’s still fully dressed. It’s easier to face Lovett in jeans and a sweater. 

“I didn’t set out to—lie to you.” It makes him wince, saying it. “You were such a mess—”

“Thanks,” Lovett cuts in, drily.

Jon shrugs. “Seriously, though. You were eating popcorn with chocolate syrup. You emptied a bottle of vodka.”

“It wasn’t that full to begin with,” Lovett says. “Well—it wasn’t completely full to begin with. Get to the part about you.”

Jon swallows. He wishes, now, he’d gotten drunk. “Lovett—I know I fucked up, but if you want me to just—torture myself over it, trust me, I did that all day already. And last night.”

“Bully for you,” Lovett says, and his voice is harder now. “I sure was worried about how you felt after all the lying.” 

“I wasn’t!” Jon sucks in a breath and tries to steady his voice. “Lovett, I wasn’t lying. Or I was lying to myself, not you. I was just trying to keep you from ending up with some other David.”

If he’d thought that might soothe Lovett, he’s entirely wrong. “And who made you the fucking arbiter of that?”

Jon comes very close to shouting back. He stops himself, more because it’s the middle of the night than for any particularly good reason. He takes another deep breath. “No one. I just—I wanted a chance. I’ve wanted a chance for a long time, but you’re always dating someone. I’ve tried giving you time to get over breakups, and suddenly you’re at my house raving about Tom or Dick or Harry, and I’m—you know, any one of those guys could have been your life guy, and then, I don’t know. Fuck. I mean, I’d be happy for you, obviously, just—”

Lovett rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. “So when I said I’m not looking, I’m just going to fuck around for a while, and _you_ said I could just fuck around with you, what you meant was, ‘I’m going to get under your defenses because I have this long con I’ve been working on’? Do I have it right?”

Jon swallows. He thinks about whether he could just pull a Lovett, leave the room and drive to … somewhere. Away from here, away from this conversation. But Lovett deserves better than that. Jon can make himself explain, if it might make Lovett feel better. “It wasn’t premeditated,” he says. “The trip—I really want you to understand that I just suggested the trip because you were sad, and I care about you. Not—I thought you had a boyfriend, when I suggested it. It wasn’t about that, at all.”

Lovett shakes his head. “I don’t know if you think that’s worth brownie points, or what, but you still and absolutely lied to me in Arizona.”

Jon wishes he knew how to explain. “I didn’t mean it as a lie,” he says. “I thought it would be enough if I just—I thought what you wanted could be enough for me, but it isn’t. I couldn’t keep just having sex with you without telling you how I feel. Even if it—I mean, obviously it didn’t exactly go the way I was hoping. I knew that was a risk, but I _didn’t_ want to lie to you.” Lovett isn’t moving; his arms are back across his chest, protecting him. 

Jon tries again. “I was gonna tell you in Arizona, when you told me about David. Just—then you said you were going to shank anyone who—” He shakes his head. “I don’t fucking know, Lovett. I’m sorry. I just wanted you to be happy, so I took you to the Grand Canyon. After that it just all got—confused.”

Lovett starts moving, trying to find a new position in the armchair. It’s the first indication Jon’s had that Lovett might be something other than just angry. Angry Lovett doesn’t pretzel himself. Or—when Lovett’s angry about politics, about the Beverly Center, about people checking their cell phones during movies, he delivers those opinions from any of a dozen strange positions. Sometimes, at Jon’s house, he’s upside down. But when Lovett’s angry for himself—when it matters—he sits like Tommy, shoulders back, ready to take on the world. 

Jon waits. He’s not going to say whatever next sentence might take Lovett right back to that rigid posture. 

“That’s not an answer,” Lovett says, finally. “It’s an explanation, but it’s not—you knew you wanted more, and you knew you were trying to, to get in when the getting was good, and—” He stops, and Jon sees, again, that chin-wobble that makes it feel like the air’s gone out of the room. 

“I’m sorry,” Jon says, dully. “I’m so—I spent three years trying to not be the guy who ruins a friendship because he’s in love with his friend, and then I just, fuck. I just fucking ruined it right when it mattered the most. I’m sorry.”

Lovett fusses, trying one arrangement and then another. He finds the lever to make the chair recline, and then brings it back up again. He ends up cross-legged, elbows in his lap, looking small and confused, more than he is angry. 

“I don’t know what to do about getting something good in such a shitty package,” he says, finally. It’s soft. “I don’t know how not to—I don’t know how not to let this ruin it.” 

Jon waits, because there’s something in there he doesn’t want to cut off, even though parts of it are making him wince. 

“You _love_ me,” Lovett says, and Jon nods, feeling sick. The way Lovett says it, it’s got the bite of an accusation. Lovett lifts himself off the chair and then resettles in the exact same position, from what Jon can tell. “Ronan sent me here. He said I should hear you out.”

Jon adores Ronan. Jon has always adored Ronan, and has definitely never been jealous of him, and will definitely remember to send him a birthday gift this year. 

“He said—” Lovett pauses, makes a face. “He pointed out that even if you fucked up, I wasn’t exactly entirely forthright, either, so.” 

There’s another pause. Lovett usually speaks so quickly, his brain finding metaphors and allusions so fast it’s a wonder to watch. Jon’s always been good with language—in many ways he knows he’s better than Lovett—but the way Lovett works on the fly, freestyling, has never stopped impressing Jon. This careful selection of words isn’t Lovett’s style, and Jon’s not about to get in his way. 

“I don’t know if you’re aware—let me rephrase that. Obviously, you’ve never had to learn that being into one’s straight friends is a good way to get beaten up, or just—you know, less after-school-special kinds of things, but bad outcomes, let’s say. Good way to lose friends. Good way to lose a bunch of friends all at once and end up eating lunch in the space under the stairs by the gym. You get me?”

Jon nods, which seems to be all Lovett needs to keep going. “So you learn pretty fast not to be into your straight friends. Or if you are, to keep it fucking quiet. And if, if—” He takes a deep breath. “If one of those friends offers you sex in exchange for a road trip, which is a deeply weird deal, by the way, you might be stupid enough to say yes, but you’re not going to be stupid enough to ask if it means anything.” 

It feels like ages since Jon’s spoken, and he finally thinks he has something to say. “Does it? Mean anything?”

Lovett bounces his knee, pulls one foot out from under himself to plant on the floor. “I—fucking of course it does, and you’re—if you’re guilty of not telling me that, I guess I’m, uh. I maybe should get the same sentence.” 

He shakes his head, not quite looking at Jon. “I love you. I’ve—when you offered to—when you said I looked _hot_ in that fucking random shirt, I thought—I don’t fucking know. Like no one with a functioning libido on the planet would refuse you, saying that, but also that it would be a guarantee of, of complete fucking heartbreak. But I’ve done stupider things plenty of times, so.” He shrugs. “I decided to get my heart broken.” 

Jon’s voice breaks when he says, “I wouldn’t. If you trusted me with it, I fucking swear—”

Jon doesn’t remember, later, Lovett crossing the room. He just remembers Lovett’s mouth on his, his hands on Lovett’s shoulders. He remembers Lovett climbing onto the bed to straddle his thighs, leaning down to kiss him some more, and Lovett complaining, sooner than Jon expected, that this is making his back hurt, and can they lie down. He remembers laughing, and Lovett grinning at him. 

Here, now, he rises up and pulls Lovett with him, both of them tripping over each other’s feet in their haste to get into the big bed. Jon’s faintly aware that the curtains are wide open; he hopes anyone with binoculars on a boat in the harbor enjoys the show. “Lovett,” he says, low and serious. “I’m—I really—”

“Yeah,” Lovett agrees. “Kiss me again.” He tugs Jon’s face down to his, even as they’re still wriggling up to the center of the bed, Jon above him. 

Everything seems new, again. Nothing they’ve done counts, when Jon compares it to the idea of doing it again, now, both of them wanting more than just— “This means, like. You and me, right?” Jon asks, feeling the inadequacy of the words, but needing to hear it. 

“Yes,” Lovett says, gasping and sincere under Jon. “You and me, yeah. That’s what I want.” 

“Me, too,” Jon tells him, and kisses the rough skin of his throat, razor-toughened. “Want you to let yourself into my house and just not leave.” 

Lovett laughs, breathless. “I do that now,” he says. “Fuck, Jon, I need—take your stupid clothes off, already.” 

“No, I—” Jon shakes his head, so close to Lovett that his hair catches on Lovett’s curls. “I want to take my time, can I, can we do that? I’ve been wanting that, this whole time. It’s hot, the way you just, uh, go for it, but I want to take our time.” 

Lovett looks squirrelly. “We don’t have to,” he says, and pulls out of Jon’s arms to go close the curtains on the balcony. “I’m a sure thing.” He laughs, but it’s not the way Jon wants to hear him laugh, easy and confident. 

Jon supposes they’ve got some ways to go to make up for the weirdness of the last couple days. He’s ready to try his part, anyway. “Lovett—I want to touch you. Can I do that?”

Lovett turns around, arms folded across his chest. “It’s weird now,” he says. “It should be less weird, right? Now we—but it’s weird.” 

Jon can’t disagree with him, really. It’s not a trip out of time, anymore. “It matters now,” he suggests. “Now it’s, you know. For keeps.” He hopes. He hopes it’s for fucking keeps. “Bigger performance anxiety,” he adds, with a smile, and Lovett cracks one, too. 

“Yeah,” Lovett agrees. “It matters now, yeah. Although, fuck, imagine it had been a mess in Arizona, just—I don’t know, probably you’ve never had bad sex, but it could have been, like. Nobody stays hard and everybody feels unfuckable and it’s a whole—” He waves his hands in the air. “You wouldn’t know, but trust me, it sucks.” 

“I would _definitely_ know,” Jon tells him, laughing easily now. “Oh my God, Lovett, I would—once I bit someone. A woman, I bit a woman on the—just, it was so bad. I got a charley horse or something and my leg cramped and I just bit down, and she screamed bloody murder. It was a nightmare.” 

Lovett’s lit up, laughing, lively now like he hasn’t been since the drive from Columbus. “What, like, on her—uh, _on_ her?” he asks. “Did she have to get, like, medical attention? Did you do serious damage?” 

Jon covers his face with his hands. He’s not sure what he’s doing wouldn’t properly be called giggling. “No, no, it was just—but she texted me later saying it bruised. She had a bruised clitoris. I don’t think that’s even—I’d never even heard of that.” He lifts his head up, bites his lips to try to keep his smile from getting ridiculous. “You sure you still want me, after that?”

Lovett comes closer, looking almost like the steady version of himself that Jon wants to restore. “Clearly, I’m taking a risk,” he says. “Sure, you’re handsome and smart and care about the world and, let’s face it, in a high tax bracket, but on the other hand, you might bite my dick off. That’s a real head-scratcher.” 

Jon laughs so hard he has to grab a pillow to muffle it, afraid they’re going to wake up any neighbors. “The hotel’s practically empty,” Lovett says, pulling the pillow away from Jon’s face. “I asked. And I booked that room,” pointing to the wall nearest the bed. “So—”

Heat pools in Jon’s belly, displacing the desire to keep joking around. “So—let me touch you,” Jon says. “Please.” 

“I’m not saying it’s not hot when good-looking men beg to touch me,” Lovett starts, and Jon laughs, shakes his head, and wrestles Lovett toward the bed. “Hey, hey! Objection!” Lovett shouts, voice full of laughter. “Where’s the referee, I want a, a—yellow card! That’s a thing!”

Jon blows bubbles against the sliver of stomach where Lovett’s shirt has ridden up, just to amuse himself, and then lifts his head to look up at Lovett. “Let me,” he says again. “I want to touch you so much. It’s—I’ve thought about it so much, just—” He stops, leans up and runs his fingers gently down the line of Lovett’s throat. Lovett sucks in a breath, tilting his chin up to give Jon access. “Please.”

“That’s, ah. That’s a fairly winning argument,” Lovett says. He coughs, clears his throat. “I mean, I reserve the right to complain at any point.”

“I know you do,” Jon tells him, grinning, and leans up to kiss the response away from Lovett’s mouth. 

After that, Lovett lets him explore. Lovett’s hands stay on Jon’s shoulders and his arms, like at any moment he might decide to stop him, roll them over and speed things up. He doesn’t, though. He doesn’t stop Jon when he’s kissing the soft skin under Lovett’s ear, or when Jon finds the places on his neck that make Lovett rock his hips. He lets Jon strip his shirt off and kiss the pale skin under it, at his shoulders and his ribs and everywhere else Jon can reach. 

He does say, “Ticklish,” when Jon goes for the arch of his feet, but lets Jon stroke his ankles, up under the hem of his pants. 

“Off with these,” Jon says, and Lovett lifts his hips to let Jon pull them down. 

“You can come back up, now,” Lovett says, softly. “You made your point. Very sweet, very, um, very rom-com. You can come fuck me now.” 

Jon leans in and kisses Lovett’s knee, then pushes his leg up enough to mouth at the soft skin behind it. “Not yet,” he says. The backs of Lovett’s thighs are only very lightly furred, and Jon gets distracted by them, fingernails and lips tracing up and up.

“At some point,” Lovett says, his voice thready, “This enters into the realm of, of being a cock tease.” 

“Not if I have plans to follow through.” Jon bites down on the skin under his mouth, hard enough that Lovett groans. He’s up close to Lovett’s boxer-briefs now, and he gets his fingertips up into the legs of them, feeling out the crease at the bottom of Lovett’s ass. 

Lovett breathes out, long and slow, instead of replying. He’s hard in his underwear; it would be hard to tell, because they’re matte black, but Jon’s got the side view—the bottom view—the something view—of the way his cock is pressing against the fabric. He leans up and breathes on it, hot, and then goes back to kissing Lovett’s inner thigh. 

“I hate you,” Lovett says, weakly. His hand settles in Jon’s hair, stroking it. Jon feels warm all through his chest. He works his hands free of Lovett’s briefs and tugs them off, carefully freeing Lovett’s dick as he goes. 

“Don’t think I got to tell you how much I liked, um,” Jon says, and in lieu of finding the right phrase, kisses the underside of Lovett’s cock. “I hadn’t, before. I thought about it. I thought about what you’d like.” 

“I’d like you actually sucking me off,” Lovett suggests, but he’s given up on trying to sound persuasive. It’s just a joke, now. “That would be my ideal.”

Jon’s planning on it. Jon wants a rerun, tonight, so he can see Lovett as well as taste him, so he can hold Lovett in his arms afterward and tell him how perfect he is. 

He mouths at Lovett’s freshly bared hip, first, and at the red marks where the elastic has been digging into him. Lovett’s skin smells good here, a deep scent that registers as just _sex_ in Jon’s hindbrain. 

He’s teasing himself, now, as much as Lovett. He’s been storing Lovett’s reactions up, the little hitches of breath, the tensed muscles, and now he wants more. He wants to make Lovett fucking scream. 

“You should tell me how you like it,” Jon says. “Or if you want me to do anything different, or—you know. Anything like that.” 

“I’ve already been quite clear about wanting you to—oh, _fuck_.” Lovett cuts off as Jon wraps one hand and then his mouth around Lovett’s cock, moving slow but deliberately now that he’s decided to go for it. “Right, yes. That’ll work.” His voice sounds slurred with pleasure, already. Jon supposes he’s been teasing Lovett for long enough to get him nice and worked up; he’s certainly rock-hard under Jon’s tongue. 

There’s no good way to drag this out that doesn’t seem excessively cruel, right now. Jon’s been with women who forced him back from the edge, and he can see why people like that, but it’s never been for him, and he has a feeling it’s not for Lovett. If it is, he’ll learn, but tonight, if there’s going to be any sexy forcing, he wants it to go the other way. He wants Lovett to come for him, now, and then maybe again, if he can. If Jon can work him up again. Jon’s certainly going to fucking try. 

He sucks hard, tries to keep his teeth back and covered. He’s dripping spit, wetting his fist where it’s working the rest of Lovett’s cock, and the whole thing is messy in a way that’s making Jon rock his hips against the bed. It’s all so _real_ , so immediate. He can smell Lovett’s skin and taste his precome and he wants to hear Lovett do more than just breathe faster. 

After a moment’s thought, he switches hands, and urges Lovett’s knee up until he can easily press his spit-wet fingertips to Lovett’s hole. “Oh, fuck, okay, yeah,” Lovett says, breathless now, shifting his hips and his other leg until it’s easy, easy for Jon to push one finger in, not all the way but enough that both of them are hyper-focused on it. 

“I can’t believe I have to decide between, ah, between one of us getting up for lube versus keeping your tongue on my dick,” Lovett says, pausing between every third word to catch his breath. “This is, this is fucking cruel. This is some kind of karmic retribution for, I don’t know what for. I haven’t done anything wrong.” 

It might be retribution for Jon, instead, who deserves it and who wants, desperately, to have his fingers deep inside Lovett without having to stop sucking him off. He doesn’t even know where the lube would _be_ —somewhere in Lovett’s bag, he guesses, but that’s as far as his guess goes. 

Lovett’s bag is close to the bed. Fuck it: this can be a team effort. Jon pulls off long enough to snag it one-handed and haul it, triceps complaining, onto the bed close to Lovett’s side. “Find it,” he says, and then leans back and sucks Lovett down again, getting back into his rhythm. 

“This is—you expect me to use my hands and my wits while—” Lovett cuts off, and Jon hears a zipper and the sounds of rustling, and then Lovett’s quiet “Thank fuck,” before a tube is pressed against Jon’s shoulder. 

Jon only realizes when he’s pushing his finger back into Lovett, slow and easy and lube-wet, that this is the first time he’s gotten to finger Lovett. It seems so familiar, like they must have done it before, but it’s new. Only now is he struck with the nervousness, the wanting to get it right. 

Lovett, above him, has one hand over his eyes and one hand stuffed halfway in his mouth, and his biceps are bulging like he’s straining against an invisible force. Jon’s pretty sure he’s that invisible force. So he’s getting it right, he thinks. He isn’t entirely sure what to do with his finger besides move it in and out in rhythm with his mouth, but that’s something, anyway.

His jaw aches, more than he was expecting. He wonders if Lovett’s jaw is used to this, if his own will get used to it. He’d like to get used to this, to the weight of Lovett in his mouth and the way it feels like Lovett’s whole body is under Jon’s control, right now. One flick of his tongue and Lovett swears and tenses. If he pulled off, Lovett would demand he not stop. It’s heady and powerful, and Jon tries out humming around him, just to see—

“Fuck, _fuck_ ,” Lovett says, hands scrambling down to push Jon’s face away from his cock. “I’m, you, I’m gonna,” and he wraps his hand over the head of it, keeping the come from reaching Jon when it starts. 

Jon leans in and licks the side of Lovett’s hand, mostly just to show willing, and kisses Lovett’s wrist. He doesn’t pull his finger out of Lovett, but he crawls up enough to kiss Lovett’s lax mouth. “Hey,” he says, and Lovett blinks up at him, still catching his breath. 

“Hey,” Lovett says, and it’s halfway between mocking and fond. “You have some kind of plan? Because I notice I’m still being, like, passively penetrated, here.” 

Jon grins at him. “Dunno,” he says. “Would that be good? Or just too much?”

Lovett shuts his eyes, briefly. “This has been the weirdest day.” He looks back up at Jon. “It might be good if you actually commit to it,” he says, and suddenly there’s a heel on Jon’s back and Lovett’s hand is pressed against Jon’s, one of Lovett’s fingers sliding—oh, fuck—in alongside Jon’s. 

Lovett bites his lip, and then Jon leans in and bites it for him. “Focus,” Lovett mumbles. “Don’t miss out on the Learning Annex.” 

“I wouldn’t dare,” Jon tells him, and slides back down to where he can watch their fingers moving together. Lovett’s straining, hand twisted, and Jon hurries to help replace Lovett’s finger with another of his own. “Is this—two? Is two good?” 

“Three is better,” Lovett mumbles. “Your dick is going to be better. Just—crook your fingers, Favreau, don’t make me teach you everything.” 

Jon crooks his fingers. Lovett gasps, wetly. “Fuck, it’s too much,” Lovett says, and when Jon, blanching, tries to pull his hand away, Lovett grabs for his wrist. “Not—good too much. The good kind of too much. The—don’t stop. You can’t stop.”

“Okay,” Jon says. Lovett’s still half-hard, and Jon wonders if he’ll be able to come again, if Jon keeps working him like this. If Jon fucks him. “Okay, yeah. I’ve got you, Lo.” 

Lovett says, “Can’t believe I haven’t gotten to touch your stupid perfect dick this whole time.”

“Tomorrow,” Jon suggests. “Day after that. You want to stay in Cape Cod with me for a week? Could be nice.”

“I want to fly back to LA and be in my house with my video games,” Lovett says, and his hips move, pushing into Jon’s fingers. “But you should, like. You should be there, too.” 

That sounds good to Jon. Cape Cod’s nice, but it’s cold, and LA is warm and sunny and Lovett feels comfortable there. That’s worth everything to Jon.

“We can fly back tomorrow, if you want,” Jon says. “Is—should I put in another?”

Lovett groans, rolling his head side-to-side on the bed. “I don’t fucking know,” he says. “No. Just—fuck me. I’ll talk you through it.”

“I think I can—”

“You can’t,” Lovett says, a smile in his voice. “I’m very particular, and also you don’t know what you’re doing.”

That’s fair enough, Jon thinks, and he can feel the way his own smile is pressing up into his cheeks. He roots around in Lovett’s bag with his free hand until he finds the condoms, rolls one on and strokes some lube over himself. He’d normally need to jerk himself for a minute, but even the chill and the tightness of the condom aren’t doing much to fight down the erection he’s been sporting since he got Lovett’s pants off. 

“Slow but not steady,” Lovett says, when Jon’s lining up, Lovett’s legs up and back. “Little, ah. Little back-and-forth, just tiny—” Jon presses in, and Lovett’s eyes roll upward, his tongue finding the corner of his mouth. He’s so fucking tight, still, and Jon flashes back on Amarillo, on Lovett above him, riding him. 

“You’re the hottest—you’re so—” Jon hasn’t got good words, suddenly. He wishes he did. He wants to write down everything he’s ever thought about Lovett, so he can read it out to him next time. “You’re so perfect, Lovett.” 

Lovett’s heel pulls against his back, tugging him in, and Jon goes, fucking forward into Lovett until he’s all the way in. “God,” he says, breathing raggedly. He has to move, _has to_. He waits for Lovett’s okay, anyway, straining to stay still. 

“Your stupid gorgeous dick,” Lovett says. “Fuck me with it, already, I’m not getting any younger.” He’s breathless, overcome. He’s hard again, which seems miraculous, but Jon’s not in the mood to question miracles. He just takes the instruction he’s been given and pulls back, thrusts slowly back in.

Lovett, under him, looks shiny with sweat. It makes Jon want to lick him. He can’t reach, but he can at least stroke a hand up Lovett’s chest and onto his jaw, cupping his face. “So gorgeous,” Jon tells him, feeling it, hoping Lovett can see how much he means it. “You’re so hot.” 

“You can’t just, just _say_ that,” Lovett gasps. He’s panting, and on every stroke, he’s shifting to meet Jon. As Jon watches, one of Lovett’s hands slides down to his own cock, cupping it loosely. 

Jon swallows. “Yeah, God. Are you gonna—can you get yourself off for me? I want you to. If you can. I want to watch.”

“You’re doing slightly more than watching,” Lovett comments, and starts stroking himself. “I’ll—yeah. Fuck. You’re a fucking menace, you know that? I’m in my thirties, I’m not supposed to be able to—oh, yes, like that, just like that.”

Jon doesn’t know what he did, but he tries to replicate it, a sharp snap of his hips. Lovett _whimpers_ , so it seems to be working for him. Jon does it again, gets into a rhythm, and watches the way Lovett’s hand is tightening on his dick. Lovett doesn’t get fancy; it’s just good old-fashioned jacking off, fast and easy. Jon could do this for him, if he balanced right. He doesn’t try; Lovett’s got it well in hand—er, Lovett’s got it handled—anyway, Lovett’s doing a fine job, and Jon wants to watch him get himself off. 

_Fine hand-job,_ he thinks, and has to hold back a laugh. Everything about this is—he feels high on it, on the relief and the pleasure and the way Lovett’s watching him. The way Lovett looks open and easy again, like he’s not wondering what stupid thing Jon might do next. Jon wants to live up to that look. 

“I’m, I’ll,” he says, not even sure what the end of the sentence is going to turn out to be. “Lovett, I’m gonna make you feel so good—”

“You are, you are,” Lovett gasps, interpreting it as dirty talk. “So good, Jon.”

“I mean—happy, I’m gonna make you feel so happy, all the time. In LA, I’m, I’ll make you happy. I’ll try to.” Jon’s losing the thread of his thought, but his hips are on autopilot, at least, and he can feel the warmth of Lovett’s skin under his fingers, and all of it is perfect, perfect, perfect. 

Lovett’s breath catches, and he pulls his hand off his dick, bracing it on the bed. “You—that should not be working for me as much as it is,” Lovett gets out. “You need to come, you need to—I’m so fucking close.”

Jon blinks the sweat out of his eyes, trying to focus, to refocus, on what Lovett wants. He’d been trying to hold off, and it should be easy to switch gears but it’s taking him a minute, tapping back into his senses, his nerve endings. The way Lovett’s tight around him, still, and lube-wet, and the way Lovett’s cock is twitching against his belly. The way the whole room stinks of sex now, of Lovett’s come. The way Lovett’s hips are rocking up towards Jon’s, trying to meet his thrusts. 

He needs a different stroke from this, longer, more deliberate. He watches Lovett’s face as he changes it up, the way Lovett catches his breath and then blows it out. Lovett’s eyes go heavy-lidded, his whole expression going loose, the way he looks when he gets high. Like Jon’s dick is making him feel high. “Good?” Jon asks, voice tight. 

“Different good,” Lovett says. He sounds high, too, dreamy and languid. “You could do that for ages and I’d—it’s, yeah. Good.”

Jon doesn’t have ages. Jon’s got a minute, maybe, if it keeps feeling like this. “Another time?”

Lovett laughs, and then he’s reaching for Jon’s chest, running his hands across Jon’s skin. “Yeah, c’mon. Come in me.”

Jon gasps, “ _Jesus_ ,” head suddenly full of the image of him filling Lovett up, of the condom not being there, of—licking it out of Lovett, after—

He comes, groaning, fucking into Lovett erratically. It feels like toppling over the fucking Grand Canyon, rushing through him in a long wave. He blinks back to reality eventually, finds that his hands are clawed tightly into Lovett’s hips. “Sorry.” He loosens them, gently, runs the pads of his fingers over the red marks he’s left. 

“Don’t be,” Lovett tells him, tightly. “That was so hot, fuck.” His hand’s back on his cock, yanking fast and tight. Jon feels like he should help, like he should do something, but all he can manage is to watch. Lovett’s face is screwing up, nearly there, and Lovett says, “You should pull out before I—it’ll hurt if you don’t—” 

Jon pulls out, gently, holding the condom on and then, wincing, pulling it off. Lovett’s so _open_ , and Jon can’t keep himself from running a fingertip over the soft, still-slick skin. “ _Jon_ ,” Lovett gasps. “Put—don’t fucking tease me, put your fucking fingers in.”

Jon hadn’t realized that was an option, but of course it is, of course—he puts his fucking fingers in, two of them, and then a third, because Lovett’s so easy for it now. His gaze is darting between Lovett’s face, and his cock, and Jon’s fingers inside him, and the sweet little folds of his belly, and the line of his thighs. “Love you,” Jon tells him, crooking his fingers.

Lovett’s head rolls back and he’s coming, bubbling up over his hand again. He tightens down on Jon’s fingers so much it hurts, and Jon waits it out and then pulls them free, as gently as he can. 

It takes a minute for Lovett to fully relax down into the bed, for Lovett to let out a long breath and say, “Fuck, that was—yeah.”

Jon crawls up next to him, lays down where he can kiss Lovett’s shoulder and tuck his chin into it. “It was pretty ‘yeah.’ Agreed.”

Lovett swats him on the arm, laughing. He sounds light, now. Unburdened. “We’ll see about taking your training wheels off at some point, if you keep doing well with instructions,” Lovett murmurs. 

“I’m a quick study,” Jon promises. He leans in closer, kisses Lovett’s neck. Lovett smells warm and sweaty. “Let me buy you breakfast in the morning, and then we can fly back to LA and like …”

“‘Like,’” Lovett mimics. “Like, braid each other’s hair and have slumber parties—”

Jon surges up and kisses him, teeth grazing Lovett’s lip. “Yes,” he says, holding Lovett’s face in his hands and leaning over him. “Lovett—anything would be great, as long as it’s with you. Okay?”

“That’s like an engraved invitation to make you play video games,” Lovett tells him. 

“Fine,” Jon says. “I don’t—whatever you think is going to be the stumbling block, Lovett, it’s not. I’m in this. Me and you, I’m—you’re the only person I’d want to drive across the country with, except maybe my mom. Okay?”

Lovett sucks in a breath, leans up to kiss Jon again. “You can keep saying it,” he says. “It’s still—pretty hard to grasp.” 

“I tried, sort of, at Cornhenge,” Jon says. “And you got all squirrelly—”

Lovett looks away. “You try—the guy you’ve had low-key feelings for starts not just fucking around with you, but noticing how happy you are. It’s a weird, uh. It’s a weird line to walk.” 

“There’s a lesson in this, or something,” Jon says. “It’s late, though. We can come up with the pull-quote for our weird fable in the morning.”

“On the way back to LA,” Lovett says. “Next time we come to the beach on this side of the country, it had better be full summer, Favreau.” 

Jon thinks about Lovett’s parents in Florida, about his favorite beaches in Maryland and Georgia. “Yeah. Definitely. We’ll lie around on towels making out and scandalizing people.” 

He lets himself topple back over, still pressed close to Lovett. Lovett moves, slightly, until Jon’s more fully on top of him, angled up over his side with Lovett’s arm around his back. It’s nice. Jon could be comfortable like this for a long time. 

“We should go to Yosemite,” he murmurs. It’s getting harder to stay awake, with Lovett warm against him. “We should go see the Northern Lights.” 

“Didn’t know you had such a wanderlust.” Lovett yawns. 

It makes Jon yawn, too, stretching the words as he says, “‘m not.” He pauses, tries again. “I’m not, I just want to do it all with you. Everything.” 

“Okay,” Lovett says, voice thick with sleep. “We’ll start with LA, tomorrow. See how that goes.” 

“Sure,” Jon says. “We should get a dog.” 

Lovett laughs. “Nothing in half-measures, Jon Favreau.” He hums, sounding contented. “I have been thinking about getting a dog.”

“I know.”

There’s a wriggle under him, and Lovett snorts. “Okay, Han Solo. Go to sleep now. You can give me your letter jacket in the morning.”

Jon nuzzles closer, just a little bit, and lets himself drift off to sleep.


End file.
